


Ward

by pallas_or_bust



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Case Fic, Drama, Fantasy kitchen sink, Gen, Monica is a BAMF, Thursday is a BAMF, strong horror influence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-13 06:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2139966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallas_or_bust/pseuds/pallas_or_bust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The discovery of a young pianist's corpse puts Thursday on edge when he begins to suspect supernatural involvement. He turns to his empath bagman, Morse, for help cracking the case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically an (authorized) sequel to athena_crikey's brilliant "Effigy." You don't need to read "Effigy" to understand this (although you should go and read it anyway!), but it will likely make more sense if you do. Many thanks are due to athena_crikey for allowing me to play in her AU!

_Be afraid of the lame_ ;  
 _They'll inherit your legs._  
 _Be afraid of the old;_  
 _They'll inherit your soul._  
 _Be afraid of the cold;_  
 _They'll inherit your blood._  
 _Apres moi le deluge--_  
 _After me comes the flood._

"Apres Moi," Regina Spektor

 

CHAPTER ONE

It’s not even eight in the morning on All Soul’s Day and they’ve already got a body in the river. She’s a young woman, found by a barrister on his way to work, with her clothes caught in the reeds under a stone bridge north of town. So reports the constable who brings the paperwork by Thursday’s desk each morning.

“Oi, Jakes. Corpse in the river, let’s go.” The sharp-dressed sergeant, only just in the door, nods and shrugs his coat back on. Thursday notes with satisfaction that Morse has appeared at his side, quiet as a shadow. Yesterday—Halloween—was the D.C.’s first at the Oxford station, but he catches on quick.

“Have you two met?” Thursday asks, glancing between the two men. “D.S. Jakes, this is D.C. Morse. Morse, Jakes.”

Jakes thrusts out his hand, and Morse grips it without hesitation. His confidence, Thursday knows, is contrived. Morse is an empath, able to read others’ emotions through physical contact, and he isn’t accustomed to handshakes. Of course, since Thursday is the only one in the station other than Morse who knows this, the D.C. has to disguise such subtle reactions and little cues that might give away his status. So far, Thursday thinks, the boy’s done rather well.

Morse freezes halfway through the shake, letting go of Jakes’ hand and turning several shades paler. For a moment, he simply looks lost, and then his eyes fill with…confusion? Pity? Pain?

Jakes looks bewilderedly at his empty hand. “What the hell are you on about?”

“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t—“

“Didn’t what?” Jakes’ face twists, and his tone causes half the station to look up from their desks. Thursday claps a hand on each man’s shoulder and frog marches them out the door.

“The body we are investigating was discovered roughly half an hour ago on the south bank of the river just outside of town. It appears to be a young woman in her twenties, no ID, nobody of her description reported missing in this county. Our goal is to determine the cause of death and identify the body, understood?”

Jakes nods sharply, this bare recapitulation of facts seeming to remind him that doing his job does not involve shouting at co-workers in the middle of the station. Morse also nods, eyes faraway and sad. Good God. Thursday had thought an empath would be an asset to the force, but if Morse is going to get like this over every handshake he’s never going to make sergeant. Perhaps the boy should start wearing gloves around. Better to get odd looks than an impromptu burning at the stake. People have been known to get more worked up over less.

Together they take the Jaguar down to the riverside. Not one of them speaks. Thursday gazes out the window at the bare branches, stripped of their autumn leaves at last. True winter cold has not yet set in yet, but it’s coming. Nights are growing long, and the creatures that move in them are growing bolder. This job is always harder in the winter. Just before the solstice, as the darkness waxes and the sun clings to the southern horizon—then, hardest of all.

The barrister has already hauled the woman up on the shore and arranged her limbs somewhat presentably. Her eyes, though, are still open, dark grey holes in her shockingly white face. Her lipstick has smudged, and underneath her lips are curved into a languid smile. The dark fan of hair around her face and the navy blue party dress she wears only accentuate the paleness of her skin. Her shoes, it seems, have been lost in the river, along with any jewelry she might have been wearing as well as her identification papers.

DeBryn is already on the scene, testing the stiffness in her joints. By the hunch of his shoulders Thursday guesses he is troubled. He waits, knowing the pathologist will speak when he is ready to.

At last, DeBryn clears his throat and says, “On basis of the rigidity of the muscles, I would usually guess she has been dead for between eight and twelve hours.”

There is more coming, Thursday knows. He waits, and the younger detectives follow his lead.

“However… I cannot conclude with any certainty the time of death.”

“Why not?”

“I take it you have heard of _livor mortis_? That is, the settling of the blood towards whichsoever part of a corpse gravity dictates? It produces a red or purplish discoloration in the side of the body that is lowest. Typically in a six-hour-old body the effect would be quite pronounced. But in this case I observe no _livor mortis_ at all.”

“The corpse was found in the water, though, wasn’t it?” Morse asks.

DeBryn raises his eyebrows. “Yes, and?”

“Well, perhaps it was being spun around by the current. Perhaps the blood didn’t settle because there wasn’t a consistent ‘down’ to settle to.”

DeBryn nods. “A possibility, of course. But that does not explain why the body has been out of the river, at rest, for over an hour now, and yet I still see no evidence of _livor mortis_. Additionally, the corpse is unusually cold, consistent with a body that has been in the water for a more extended period. Given all this contradictory evidence, it is very difficult to nail down a time.”

“Any cause of death yet?” Thursday puts in.

“My first guess would be drowning and hypothermia, but I will have a better idea once the autopsy is complete.”

“No identification on the corpse?”

“None.”

“Any thought as to how she ended up in the river?”

“There’s not a mark on her, Inspector. Ordinarily, I would say she introduced herself to a cold watery Death, but there’s much that puzzles me still _vis a vis_ this corpse.”

“The party dress,” Morse puts in. “And the lipstick. Odd, for a suicide.”

DeBryn’s gaze falls on the young constable again. “Indeed,” he says with a faint smile. He moves to rise from his position at the dead woman’s side, but Thursday, fearing another handshake, waves him off.

“Thank you, DeBryn. That will be all for now.”

***

When they return to the station, a missing person’s report has been filed for a one Mary Potsham, aged twenty-six, brunette, shopkeeper at a millinery, last seen by her roommate Halloween night wearing a navy blue party dress. In fact, in is the very same roommate who is just now walking out the door.

Thursday catches up with her, beckons her back into his office. She looks like a nervous little thing, with bones like a bird’s and big doe eyes. Thursday asks a few questions to put her at ease and get a sense of her relationship with the woman who is almost certainly the deceased. They met in a quartet—the living woman plays the viola; the dead, piano. Morse, silently taking notes in the background, furrows his brow. He is a great lover of music, Thursday remembers. Perhaps he is wondering if he ever saw them play.

“What time exactly did you see her last?”

“About half seven.”

“She was wearing that blue dress, you said? Did she mention where she was going out?”

“No, not a word.”

“And was that typical for her?”

“No, sir, not at all. We always tell one another where we’re going.” She gives a hiccuping laugh. “Safer that way.”

“Wise of you both. And when did you become concerned?”

“Well, I went to bed early, so I didn’t expect her to be back. But when I woke at six this morning and her bed hadn’t been slept in I thought I should let you know.”

Thursday nodded. “Any friends, family connections in town, people she might have visited after she left the flat?”

The girl shook her head, lips pressed together. “Mary keeps to herself, mostly. The only people I know she speaks to regularly are her coworkers at the hatshop and her piano students.”

Thursday has asked all his questions, delaying the worst moment for as long as he can. The young woman must read the news off his face, though, because her eyes well up and her mouth twists. “You don’t think—that is, you haven’t found…” Behind her, Morse hunches over, running a hand down his face.

“A body was discovered in the Thames this morning. It would be a great help to us if you could assist with the identification. We have reason to believe it could be Mary.”

Great fat tears spill down the girl's face with nary a sound. Jerkily, she nods. Thursday has a quiet word with Jakes, who is lurking by the door, and learns that the body has arrived at the morgue and that DeBryn hasn’t begun the autopsy yet. He accompanies the girl down the stairs. The identification is done in under a minute; the girl gives another nod and turns away. Her lips are white and shaking with the sob she withholds, and Thursday is struck by the power of grief to silence.

Morse watches her go, a phantasm retreating into the November mists.

“You all right?” Thursday says softly. “Looked a little shook up back there. I thought you had to be touching to—you know.”

Morse gives a ghost of a smile, the odd grey light outside reflecting in his eyes. “No, no special talent of mine, as far as I can tell. Just being human.”

Sometimes, with how old a soul Morse seems, it’s easy to forget that he’s still very green. “So it is.”

He doesn’t ask what Morse recognized in Jakes earlier. All men have demons, and Jakes has all the makings of a steady officer. Thursday isn’t going to delve into his past unless he has a damned good reason to.

***

The full pathology report comes back from DeBryn after lunch. The victim died some time last night. She was not drowned, nor did she freeze to death.  

She was exsanguinated.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a young woman murdered and exsanguination the cause, Thursday moves to eliminate the most frightening possible culprit.

_The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,_   
_Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit,_   
_Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,_   
_Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it._

The Rubiyaat, Omar Khayyam, transl. FitzGerald

CHAPTER TWO

A shadow falls across Morse’s paperwork.

“Sir?”

Thursday leans forward, pitching his voice low. “We need to get you down to Pathology. Now.”

“Yes, sir.” His not to reason why—or at least, not in front of everyone, when Thursday is so clearly trying to keep this semi-discreet. He rises from the desk and follows Thursday down the steep stairway to where the bodies are kept. The door is thick oak set with wrought iron and silver, every inch carved with wards that Morse doesn’t recognize. Proof against the dead, he guesses—and the unnaturally risen.

The cold inside the morgue makes his skin prickle, although the thought of being down here with the dead is enough to accomplish that completely on its own. Morse is more squeamish than a copper should rightly be, whether from his gift or from a natural sensitivity to such things. Bodies in and of themselves are not too terrible, but the notion of there being things inside bodies—things like blood, bone, guts, sinew—makes Morse’s head swim unpleasantly. He does not like the thought of things hidden under the skin.

Mercifully, it seems DeBryn has already completed the autopsy when they arrive. Thursday strides up to him and has a few quiet words. Morse can tell he’s not supposed to be able to overhear, but he catches “very small incision” and “single drop, not one!” from the pathologist. The man looks agitated. So does Thursday, lines of tension casting deep shadows in his face. Finally, Thursday gives the man a gentle cuff on the arm and DeBryn seems to concede something, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He gives Morse a brief nod on his way out of the room.

“What did you tell him?” Morse asks, once he is gone.

“Tell him? I just reminded him he hasn’t had his lunch yet, and recommended he take his break now.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“Mary Potsham had traces of blood under her fingernails.” Thursday hesitates. “Seems to indicate she’d been trying to defend herself before she died.”

“You want me to read her corpse while he isn’t here.”

“Yes, well.” Thursday looks sheepish. “Figured you’d prefer it that way. Best the whole station doesn’t know. It’s not like DeBryn wouldn’t figure it out if he saw you in action.”

That… that is actually quite thoughtful. Morse may eventually tell some of his colleagues of his gift, but he’d much rather do so on his own terms. “Thank you, sir.”

His appointed task sounds unpleasant in the extreme. If his suspicions are right and she was murdered, then he’s going to feel the panic of drowning. And if he’s wrong, and she killed herself… well, that could easily reopen doors that he has long endeavoured to keep shut.

His reluctance must be obvious, because Thursday takes a grip of his shoulder. His hand brushes Morse’s neck on the way there, and Morse feels a flash of fear off the other man so strong, it almost eclipses his words: “We think we have a cause of death, but we need to confirm it. I don’t want to prejudice your judgment, so I don’t think I’ll say more. If you don’t want to do it, fair’s fair and we’ll be shot of it, but there’s a chance you could be an enormous help.”

Morse takes a step back, boggled by the discord between the emotions Thursday feels and the ones that show on his face. There’s genuine terror in him, and yet he’s standing here calmly in the morgue, offering Morse the choice to back out!

Well, he can’t back out now. Anything that’s got Thursday this worked up is something they have to nail down, and fast. Morse trusts the man. He wouldn’t risk Morse’s well-being for anything short of an emergency. He steels himself and says, “Fine. I’ll do it.”

“Good lad!”

Thursday rolls out the body from its refrigerated shelf. The woman has been neatly stitched back together after her autopsy, and Morse can pretend the incisions are just painted on the surface. He feels a little lightheaded, but not so much that he’s going to faint. He can do this. He will do this.

He takes the woman’s hand in his, and the whole world blinks out.

When he next comes to a sluggish and blurred sort of awareness, he is propped up against a wall. His whole body is suffused with warmth, the feeling somewhere between delicious and unpleasant. His head is lolling to one side, and he tries to correct it, but his muscles have that same warm feeling, all relaxed, and they refuse to obey him.

Someone gets an arm round his shoulders, and a hand gently grips his chin. Then there’s a sensation as startling as a cymbal crash—but it’s a smell, not a sound, and it makes his eyes fly open as he gasps for air.

Fred Thursday is peering into his face. A small bottle of spirits of ammonia is in his hand. They’re still in the morgue, the corpse on the table above.

“Hello, sir,” Morse slurs.

Thursday’s face breaks into a relieved grin. “All right there, Constable?”

Morse takes a mental tally of sensations. “Really excellent, sir.” The warmth—it’s like a drink of hot cocoa, or sliding into a bath. “Just really, really good.”

This does not seem to reassure Thursday. “Come on then,” he says, brow furrowed, “let’s get you up, shall we?”

He extends a hand to Morse, and Morse, after staring at it in puzzlement for a moment, attempts to grasp it. His hand goes wide of Thursday’s by a good six inches. He looks at his arm.

 _How now, arm?_ he thinks.

“Okay, come on now.” This time, Thursday seizes him under the arms and lifts him bodily off the morgue floor. Except he can’t quite get his feet right under himself, and ends up collapsing against the inspector, giggling.

Thursday swears. “You’ve not fainted, you’re drunk!”

“Oh, is this what being drunk is like? I should do it more often, then.” Already the feeling is beginning to fade. Morse wants it back. There’s a high, whining note of panic intruding on his thoughts. He’s come into skin contact with drunks before, but never in his life has their inebriation spilled over to him. This is something different, something sinister.

“Right, you’re a teetotaler, of course.” Thursday sighs deeply. “We’ll get you to a pub where you can… sober up, I suppose.”

Morse’s skin begins to crawl with the cold again. The warmth is dissipating. “Sorry, sir. That—that won’t be necessary.” His tongue still feels thick, but he’s already embarrassed by this whole thing. He pushes off Thursday in an attempt to stand on his own and his legs promptly give out, sending him crashing down. His knees crack against the tile painfully; he barely keeps himself from crying out. As it is, he has to take a couple gulps of air before he manages, “Don’t know what… what got into me.”

He tries to rise again, but he’s clumsy as a newborn fawn. His head is spinning, and not in a good way. Thursday helps him lean back against the wall again as he waits for the dizziness to fade.

“Euphoria,” Morse gabbles. “She was absolutely giddy, but totally relaxed. Trusting. Like… like a child, and not even a clever child. Everything warm and safe and inviting. And, and my arms and legs aren’t working, and it’s really starting to bother me… sir.” He can’t keep the panicked note from emerging in that last sentence, his breath coming fast and shallow.

“Easy, Morse. The other effects are fading already. This one will, too. We just have to wait it out.”

Morse nods, taking a deep, shaky breath. After a few minutes, he manages to draw his right hand into a fist without undue effort, and takes this as a sign that he might be back in control of his extremities. Thursday gives him a hand up, ready to catch him if he falls again, but there are no problems. Wordlessly, Thursday wheels the corpse back into its space.

“Well?”

Thursday gives him an odd look, furtive and guilty and a little scared.

“We’re going to the pub.”

“The pub?” Morse repeats, incredulous.

“You need to eat. I need to eat. And we need to discuss this outside the station.”

***

After his frightening experience in the morgue Morse has no appetite to speak of, but he forces down the mushy peas, fish, and potatoes to keep Thursday happy. Thursday has a sandwich packed by his wife. Corned beef.

“What do you know about the blood-touched?” he asks Morse gently.

Morse shrugs. “Hundreds of different kinds, sir. Most of them uncommon in England, thank goodness. What they have in common is their vulnerability to iron.”

“And what about vampires?”

“Most common blood-touched on the Continent. Extraordinarily strong, active at night. The majority are mindless hunting machines, but older ones are smarter. They prey on people by drinking their blood. And… and you think one killed the woman in the morgue.”

The last sentence is a shot in the dark, but Thursday nods. “All true. Do you know how they hunt?”

“Ambush predators, I thought. They often disguise themselves as human until they’re too close to escape.”

“They also have a powerful narcotic and anticoagulant in their saliva. Did you know it takes over a minute to drain a person completely of blood?”

Morse shakes his head, feeling queasy.

“Of course, people don’t take kindly to the procedure; they tend to fight back, maybe even injure the creature as it tries to feed. The venom puts them into a state of bliss. It can even cause muscle paralysis. The victims don’t stand a chance.”

Morse's nausea intensifies. “That’s what I felt, then.”

“That’s what you felt.”

Even now, though, remembering… it makes him feel somewhat better. Comfortable. Even now, part of him wants to feel that way again. The realization makes him shudder.

“I’m sorry I put you through that,” Thursday says softly, staring into his ale. “I wasn’t sure it was a vampire, and I needed to know. I didn’t know it would be that strong. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“It’s fine.”

Thursday looks up, his dark eyes suddenly intense. “Don’t let me use you that way again, Morse. I mean it. You have a gift, but that doesn’t mean that I should just… should just throw you in the way of whatever danger there is, and damn the consequences. The dead can keep their secrets, as far as I’m concerned, if it means risking you. You’re one of my coppers and you’re a human being, and I shouldn’t have treated you like that. I’m sorry.”

A lump rises in Morse’s throat. The thought that Thursday wants to keep him safe, cares for his welfare, moves him more than he thought it could. He hasn’t felt that kind of fierce protectiveness since… well, since his mother died. “Apology accepted, sir.”

There’s an awkward pause. Morse fiddles a little with his serviette before asking, “So, what’s next?”

“What’s next is we go back to the station,” Thursday growls, “and we gather all the lads together, and we tell them that for the first time in fifty years Oxford has a vampire on the loose.”

***

The station is thrown into a state of chaos and dismay by the news, and teams are immediately organized to scour likely hideouts in the city centre. The Oxford station rings other local towns for more manpower. Their goal is to find the creature before it kills again—and it will kill again, if they do not find it. Blood-touched, especially the young ones, must feed often. Worse, those poor people they do not completely exsanguinate are turned into vampires themselves, or made into thralls. Freshly-turned vampires often go on berserker rampages that can slaughter entire villages. Thralls are completely under the original monster’s control, mindless and soulless.

As terrifying as these bare facts are, presented by Thursday at the blackboard in front of a stunned audience of coppers, Morse can barely keep his mind focused on the task at hand. He spends the entire afternoon in a distracted haze: the aftereffects of his exposure to Mary Potsham’s corpse, no doubt. Thursday sends him home early and, though his habit at Carshall Newton was to work late, he does not object.

When he returns to his apartment his records are waiting for him. Joycie was good enough to ship them over, covered in dust but otherwise unharmed during his long absence. He puts on the ’54 production of Madame Butterfly and leans back in his chair with his hands laced behind his head and his eyes closed.

As always, the music centres him. In his life as an empath, Morse quickly discovered the disorienting and disruptive influences others’ emotions could have on his own psyche. The vague horror of Jakes’ past; Thursday’s sharp fear; most of all, the languid, calming influence on the corpse: all have taken their toll.

If he wants to remain anything resembling a sane human being, he needs to find Morse again, and he has found that nothing is better for finding Morse than music. In its presence he feels stronger, more whole, washed clean of the dozens of stray troubles of strangers he encounters throughout the day. Music is a holy thing, precious and pure, the guiding light in his life. He basks in it until the sound is Morse and Morse is sound and nothing comes between.

At last, he opens his eyes and takes a deep breath.

That’s better.

He glances at the clock, sees it's past one in the morning, and grimaces. His neighbours probably hate him, but there's nothing for it at this point. He kicks off his shoes and falls into an exhausted sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some inspiration on vampire venom was drawn from Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novels, and some comes from actual venomous snakes :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to all who left comments and kudos! You fill me with warm and fuzzy feelings :D

_Now, youth, the hour of thy dread passion comes;_   
_Thy lovely things must all be laid away;_   
_And thou, as others, must face the riven day_   
_Unstirred by rattle of the rolling drums,_   
_Or bugles' strident cry. When mere noise numbs_   
_The sense of being, the sick soul doth sway,_   
_Remember thy great craft's honour, that they may say_   
_Nothing in shame of poets. Then the crumbs_   
_Of praise the little versemen joyed to take_   
_Shall be forgotten; then they must know we are,_   
_For all our skill in words, equal in might_   
_And strong of mettle as those we honoured; make_   
_The name of poet terrible in just war,_   
_And like a crown of honour upon the fight._

\--“To the Poet Before Battle,” Ivor Gurney

 

CHAPTER THREE

Jakes corners Thursday in his office the very next morning.

“How do you know it’s a vampire?”

Thursday decides it's time for that classic copper manoeuvre: playing dumb. “Well, Sergeant, what else could cause a young woman to lose all the blood in her body?”

Jakes bears down on the desk with both hands, elbows sticking out. Not buying it. “It could be any number of things. Someone’s idea of a sick joke. A human murderer trying to throw us off the scent. A sorcerer in need of a blood sacrifice. And those are just off the top of my head. Sir, we can’t be sure. We’ll cause a bloody panic!”

Thursday hesitates. He can’t reveal Morse’s secret; that’s for Morse to do, if and when he chooses.

“Look,” Jakes says, “just because some stupid bint got herself drained of blood doesn’t mean there’s a vampire on the loose. Standard procedure is to wait for corroborating evidence of vampire activity before making any kind of announcement. I was there when they brought the body in and you haven’t got any. There’s something you’re not telling me about this case and I need to know it.”

“Don’t speak like that.”

“What, I’m being insubordinate? I’m only trying to do my job, sir!”

Thursday slams his hand on the desk, startling Jakes to a halt. “I was referring,” he thunders, “to your calling our victim, a young woman who is now dead, as a ‘stupid bint.’”

Jakes snaps his mouth shut. He looks momentarily embarrassed. “Sorry, sir,” he mutters. “Won’t happen again.”

“It had better not. You were raised better than that, I’m sure.”

Jakes flinches, eyes on the floor.

“Now. The evidence. Yes, I have it. No, I can’t tell you what it is. But I can tell you how we’ll know for sure. Ask me how.”

“How, sir?”

“When more bodies start turning up.”

“You’re kidding.”

“The search teams turned Oxford inside out yesterday afternoon. All abandoned buildings checked and cleared. They turned up a fair bit of riffraff”—that was an understatement; four men had been injured, one still in hospital with ghast-apoplexy—“but no vampire. So either you’re right, and it wasn’t a vampire, and nothing happens. Or you’re wrong, and more people start turning up dead.”

Jakes nods, all the colour leached from his face. Thursday takes pity on him. He hadn’t meant to be so harsh, but he’d needed to throw Jakes off his initial question about evidence. Following that line of inquiry could implicate Morse.

Thursday sighs. Sooner or later, he’s not going to be able to protect the boy. But the corpse debacle yesterday, that was Thursday’s doing. He’d rather discomfit Jakes a little than have Morse’s secret blown to the whole station.

Still, he softens his tone. “You did well to consider the alternatives. People have been known to try pinning murders on blood-touched before.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jakes says, and exits the room with a little bit of his cocksure manner returning.Thursday has no doubt he will be his usual self by lunchtime.

As he said, all they can do now is wait. He’s got Morse going pub to pub trying to discover where Mary spent her last Halloween, but it’s a long shot and they both know it. By the afternoon, more pressing questions—at least, more pressing to the brass—have turned up, and the thread, for now, is left dangling.

***

The missing student’s name is Carmichael Marion-Wildcotte, and he hasn’t been seen for four days. Given that it is now three days after the discovery of Mary Potsham’s body in the Thames, Thursday wonders if the cases are connected. Yes, they both went missing on Halloween, but it doesn’t tally with Morse’s vampire theory. After all, only a recently-turned vampire would feel the need to feed twice in two days. And if they were dealing with such a creature, then its appetite wouldn’t have been sated by two people alone. Oxford would have had additional deaths yesterday and the day before, and none have been reported.

Nevertheless, the whole station is having blood-touched nightmares. The sooner they can track down this student—with, Thursday prays to God, all his blood still in his veins—the sooner they can go back to their usual (albeit mildly jumpy) routine.

Thursday, Jakes, and Morse travel to Oberon College, where young Mister Marion-Wildcotte was reading for an advanced degree in Practical Arts. Alarm bells clang in Thursday’s head at news of the boy’s chosen subject. Practical Arts—magic, to anyone other than the nobs up at the college—is a dangerous discipline. If a student practitioner doesn’t kill himself outright attempting a ritual, there are all kinds of deep temptations and moral hazards that can befall even the most upright. With great mystical power comes… well, all sorts of bad things, in Thursday’s experience.

They decide to interview his tutor first. Alton Riscar is a dapper, balding man with oval spectacles and apple-round cheeks. His accent is as posh as posh can be, but he speaks like he was born into it, with none of the aggressive pretention of someone only putting on airs. He receives them in an empty classroom, the walls lined with bookshelves. Thursday and Jakes perch awkwardly on the tables. Morse, on the other hand, slides into one of the desks like he’s attending a lecture, apparently unaware he’s done it.

“Yes, Carmichael was in his fifth year of advanced study of the Arts,” the don confirms. “He was going to defend his doctoral dissertation in the spring. I admit, I had become somewhat… concerned over his reading material lately. Of course, one may develop a sincere academic interest in the darker reaches of our craft without ever acting upon it. But…I had misgivings.”

“Did you report them?”

“It hadn’t reached that level yet. But I did speak to the boy privately. At the time I thought I had frightened him back to the straight and narrow path. But if I failed… well, the Arts are not forgiving even in their lighter manifestations. If he attempted a Dark ritual, there are any number of ways he could have disappeared, and any number of horrible beings that could have taken him. I’m afraid you may never recover a body.”

“I see,” Thursday says. “Just so we can eliminate you from our considerations, would you mind telling us where you were the night he disappeared? Halloween, it would have been.”

“Of course.” The professor reaches into a pocket and withdraws an appointment book. He hands it to Morse, who is closest.

Morse begins flipping through the pages. After scribbling down a few notes, he closes the notebook and hands it back.

“Thank you, Professor,” the constable says, “we’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.” He reaches out to shake the man’s hand, schooling his features into a carefully neutral expression. At the handshake he doesn’t flinch away, but Thursday, watching closely, notices his face go several shades paler, his mouth turning down in seeming pain. Thursday pumps the man’s hand next to cover Morse’s action, and then Jakes, looking somewhat confused, follows suit.

The professor takes his coat and hat. “Do let me know if I can be of any further assistance to your investigation.”

As his footsteps fade down the hall, Thursday mutters, “Dark magic. Well, there’s a lead to follow up on.”

Morse says, “Riscar’s a murderer.”

“What?!” Jakes bursts out. “How could you possibly know that?”

“I guess it’s just an instinct from having lived here,” Morse says, the picture of innocence. “You get a feel for which of the faculty are trying to kill you. Seriously, though, did you notice how he was trying to blame Carmichael for getting mixed up in the Dark Arts? Or how he tried to put us off even trying to find the body?”

Jakes looks like he’s just swallowed half a lemon. “Here’s a wild idea. Maybe he was blaming Carmichael for getting mixed up in the Dark Arts because Carmichael got himself mixed up in the bloody Dark Arts. Maybe he tried to put us off finding the body because something awful and tentacley came out an’ swallowed it.”

Thursday offers him no support. “Right,” he says. “Jakes, you go interview some students, try to pin down the deceased’s movements the day he died.” Jakes shuffles out of the room, dark brows drawn together.

As soon as Jakes leaves Thursday rounds on Morse. “Are you mad? Are you trying to get caught? Jakes isn’t an idiot, you know!”

“What, you didn’t want me telling a fellow policeman about the lunatic hiding in plain sight? The lunatic he’s investigating, who could any moment decide that we’re getting too close to the truth, and try to off us with magic?”

Thursday pulls up short. He hadn’t considered that angle. “You think he’d try it?”

“I think that’s how he did for Carmichael.”

“So Carmichael’s definitely dead.”

“I think Riscar thinks so. He’s got this smugness about himself. The kind you get when you kill a cockroach.” Morse shudders. “The Dark is so thick on him, I’m surprised you couldn’t feel it. And… and there’s one thing more.”

“What?”

“Dread. Deep, abiding dread.”

That was cause for concern. “What on earth could cause a man like that to be afraid?”

“I don’t know. I just get the emotion, I don’t get anything else.”

“You took an awful risk. What if Riscar had made you? Hell, what if Jakes had? At the rate you’re going, he’s going to find out you’re an empath. And then where will you be?”

“Technically, with equal protection under the law he’s sworn to uphold.”

Thursday snorts. “We both know it doesn’t work that way.”

“It worked that way with you,” Morse says softly. “And if it doesn’t for everyone, well, I’ve dealt with prejudice before.”

“This isn’t just a couple of schoolyard bullies, Morse. This could cripple your chance for advancement. Worst case scenario, you’ll be drubbed out of the force on a pretense. I’ve worked with empath consultants semi-unofficially in London, but I’ve never once heard of one coppering.”

“Sir, I have a gift.” Morse’s voice is still soft, but it’s got force behind it, like he’s said these words to himself before. “I know people don’t see it that way, but that’s what it is. Let me use it how I choose to use it. Let me help. You know I could be an asset to you.”

Thursday’s anger dissolves. The boy’s heart is so firmly in the right place; it’s going to be painful if he has to watch the shining optimism beaten out of him over the next few years. It’s an outcome he hopes to forestall. And yes, he can already see that having an empath on the force is going to be a huge boon. Imagine if catching a murderer could always be as simple as giving Morse an excuse to shake their hand!

“Fine,” he says at last. “Fine. If you want to blab about it, you can blab about it. It’s your choice. And just for the record, it’s a bloody stupid one.” He pauses for a moment before adding, “About this Riscar…We’ll have a devil of a time proving it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He’s a don. Higher-ups’ll have kittens.”

“He’s a murderer, sir. There's darkness on him. His touch was…” Morse shudders again. “I can still feel it. Like… like rancid grease.”

“I didn’t say I don’t believe you, Morse. I’m saying that we need hard evidence. First thing’s first, though. Did he have an alibi?”

Morse’s face falls almost comically. “Oh, yes. I forgot, sir. He was in gatherings all that night. Really, he’s in meetings or class almost all the time. He keeps a very busy schedule.”

“Well, I want you to go over the alibi with a fine-toothed comb. Interview the people he was supposed to be meeting with, see if he really was where he says he was. Find me a weakness and we’ll run with it.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to all the lovely folks who have left comments and kudos! It really means a lot to me to know people are reading and enjoying :)
> 
> The work is already tagged "Graphic Depictions of Violence," and this chapter, while it doesn't have violence, does have a pretty graphic description. I wouldn't say it's too far beyond the typical level of violence in the show.

_…For his art did express_   
_A quintessence even from nothingness,_   
_From dull privations, and lean emptiness;_   
_He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot_   
_Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not._

-A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy’s Day  
John Donne

 

CHAPTER FOUR

While Morse goes off in search of the people Riscar was allegedly meeting with when his student disappeared, Thursday finds Carmichael Marion-Wildcotte’s rooms. They’re on the third floor, draughty and damp, but well-furnished for student quarters. They look thoroughly lived-in, carpets stained and trodden down; old food, miscellaneous debris, and papers litter all flat surfaces. Heavy curtains cover the windows. Thursday jerks them back, and sparse winter light trickles in.

The room is such a mess that it’s going to take time to make any sense of it. Thursday adopts a methodical approach, starting in the entryway. Wards are hand-scrawled on the inside of the doorframe and over the lintel, evidently Carmichael’s own work. Thursday can’t make out the exact spell that’s been used, but he wouldn’t be a copper worth his salt if he couldn’t recognize the general type.

These wards are of middling strength and fair workmanship. They’re not the kind that would automatically incinerate any intruders. Otherwise, Thursday would already be a flaming mess on the floor, although to be fair most such wards sound an alarm in advance of firing to give (for example) the mailman a chance to dive for cover.

No, these wards are (in Thursday’s opinion) much more sensible. If Carmichael enters the room and triggers them with a code word, they’ll go up in a flash and prevent anyone else from entering. The wards last several hours, though, and taking them down from the inside before the pre-allotted time is tricky business indeed. From the outside, it’s suicide. A distinct disadvantage to these kinds of wards is that they tend to be one-and-dones; once triggered, they have to be rewritten from scratch before they can be used again.

Thursday can tell from a glance that Carmichael’s wards haven’t been triggered. Well, then. Whatever happened the night he vanished, he hadn’t felt the need to defend himself from something on the outside. Perhaps he’d left his rooms after all. Or perhaps Morse is wrong, and Riscar is right, and the student had simply summoned something beyond himself, and been lost to a thing beyond the scope of human justice.

That’s a dark thought indeed to be having so early in the day, so Thursday shoves it aside, focusing on going through the room thoroughly. Many of Carmichael’s papers are written in Greek, Latin, or Hebrew, and on top of that he has sloppy handwriting. Thursday is just puzzling through a page that seems to be mostly in English when Jakes enters the room.

“Afternoon, sergeant. Any luck with the students?”

“The cases are connected, sir.”

Thursday raises an eyebrow, waits.

“Multiple witnesses report seeing a brunette woman in a dark blue dress come up to Carmichael’s rooms Halloween night. That was the last night he was seen.”

“And we found Mary Potsham murdered the next morning.”

They look up at each other, the same alarming thought occurring to them both.

“You don’t think—“

“… that he killed her and scarpered?” Jakes finishes. “If he was getting into dark magic, like his tutor said…”

“It’s true, many dark rites require the blood of an innocent to complete…” Thursday trails off. It doesn’t make sense, not with Morse’s information.

“But you’re certain that a vampire killed her, not dark magic, for reasons you still haven’t disclosed.” Jakes crosses his arms. “Although it does occur to me that you came to the conclusion after returning from lunch with Morse.”

Thursday winces.

“And Morse is convinced that the tutor is a murderer, which could mean he was lying to us about his student being involved in the Dark Arts.”

“No, he wasn’t lying about that.” Thursday holds up the paper he’s been reading, the outline of a treatise on curses that act at distant places and times. “This fellow was a genuine piece of work.”

“Then I guess what it comes down to is how much you trust Morse.” Jakes’ face has a lean and hungry look that Thursday doesn’t like at all. “Sir, he’s been at the station for less than a week. He ‘knows’ things there’s no way for him to know. There’s just something off about him.”

“Off about who?”

Jakes and Thursday both jump. Morse is standing just outside the door. God knows how long he’s been there.

“Carmichael,” Jakes lies smoothly. “He was ears deep in dark magic.”

“How’s Professor Riscar’s alibi, Morse?” Thursday asks, further diverting the conversation.

“Solid,” the young detective says, looking sheepish. “He was where he says he was.”

Quickly they fill him in on the Mary Potsham sighting. Jakes mentions the theory that Carmichael killed her and fled, and Morse’s brow furrows.

“I thought we—that is, I thought you had pretty definitive proof that it was a vampire, sir.”

“We have to consider other possibilities.” Jakes watches the younger man with narrowed eyes.

Morse looks from Thursday to Jakes and back again, seeming to understand. “This is about the evidence that Thursday won’t disclose, isn’t it?”

A flicker of triumph passes over Jakes’ face, while Thursday feels a bolt of fear for Morse. He’s going to tell Jakes everything, isn’t he?

“The truth is,” Morse says, and then pauses. His eyes dart around the room, and then suddenly he’s striding across to a large wooden chest at the foot of the bed. “There’s a body in this trunk!”

Jakes and Thursday exchange a bewildered glance. Morse, meanwhile, is running his hands over the lip of the trunk, tugging experimentally at the lock. Abruptly he yanks his hand back like a man burned.

“It’s warded, sir,” he says, unnecessarily.

“Got a warning bite, did you?” Thursday raises an eyebrow. “Jakes, fetch one of the dons—not Riscar. See if they can open this lock without blowing us all to kingdom come.”

“Yes, sir.” The mix of emotion on his face is complex, and Jakes has never been the most easy-to-read fellow. He’s keeping a lid on something.

After Jakes is gone, Thursday murmurs, “I’m telling you, Morse, you’ve got to watch out for that one. It wouldn’t do if he found you out.”

Morse grunts, eyes scanning the room distractedly.

“Now. How in heaven’s name do you know there’s a body in this trunk? Don’t tell me you got a reading off something. You haven’t touched anything since you entered the room.”

“Didn’t need a reading. Look.” Morse gestures at the assorted debris scattered about the room. “Neatly folded old blankets stacked on the table, not the bed. Over here, schoolwork that looks like elementary Latin, far too basic for a scholar at Carmichael’s level. Cards that say ‘happy sixteenth birthday.’ A teddy bear, for God’s sake. This isn’t what a grown man leaves lying about his room. This is memorabilia. Keepsakes. This is what a grown man stuffs in a wooden chest and then never thinks about again.”

“And you think it’s not in the chest because…”

“Because when Riscar murdered Carmichael he needed somewhere to stash the body. He couldn’t risk being seen carrying it out of the room.”

“Very astute, Morse. Except you yourself just confirmed his bloody alibi!”

Morse looks up, and Thursday immediately feels a wave of guilt at the startlement in those guileless eyes.

“He’s bad, sir, I’m sure of it. It’s difficult for me to overstate how much. You don’t feel—you can’t—“ Morse begins pacing the room, gesturing to emphasize his words. “He’s evil.”

Heavy footsteps outside alert them that another draws near; both men pull up short. Thursday is immensely frustrated with Morse, and it’s obvious that Morse is even more frustrated with him. But how is Thursday supposed to investigate a man who has already alibi’d out when Morse’s instincts are literally the only thing suspicious about him?

Jakes is right. It really does come down to how much faith he’s willing to put in his greenest constable.

And yet… and yet he is inclined to trust Morse. The lad’s abilities are uncanny, but it’s not just empathy. He has a sharp deductive mind coupled with the kind of instinct that can’t be trained. He could be great one day, Thursday thinks. Not just a solid copper, not just a good man to have by your side, but great.

Jakes enters with Professor Porter in tow. Morse’s face brightens at the sight of him, and the professor tips his hat. Thursday clasps the man’s hand warmly; he has helped the police out of some extraordinarily sticky situations in the past.

“Ah! What have we here?” Porter bends to examine the chest. “Oh, it is a good thing you did not force it. That would have been a messy business. A messy business, indeed.”

Thursday does not miss the dark glance Jakes shoots him.

Porter continues obliviously. “You’ll note that, in addition to the usual hexes for anyone who opens the trunk without the key, there are measures that make it impossible to probe the chest with perception sensory or, ah, extrasensory. That is, if anyone uses any means to attempt to identify what is inside the trunk without having opened it, they will be unable to glean any information.”

“Are such measures unusual?” Morse asks.

“Oh, hardly. Especially, I am afraid, among students of a less wholesome bent. They don’t like risking housekeeping stumbling upon any Dark artefacts…”

“So it’s useless to us,” Jakes concludes.

“Oh, I didn’t say that.” Porter tuts and fiddles with this and that. “Such enchantments are easy enough to break, once one has seen enough of them.” He produces a candle from somewhere about his person, then lights it. Muttering a steady stream of nonsense under his breath, he steals some brandy from where it sits on the windowsill and pours it in a complicated squiggle on the lid of the chest. Finally, he gives the lock a gentle tug, and the metal breaks. He flings the lid open.

Morse, next to Thursday, reels back, a hand flying to his face.

Thursday recognizes the smells of blood and death. He sidesteps, putting a steadying hand on Morse’s back as he does so. It’s a good thing, too, because instead of recovering himself the D.C. goes to his knees. Thursday shifts his grip to keep Morse from smashing his head on the end table, drawing his limp weight closer, where it’s easier to control. In the background he can hear Jakes swearing a blue streak before rather hurriedly striding out of the room. Even Porter blinks once or twice. “My,” the man says faintly, “that is rather grisly.”

Judging by Jakes’ sudden reaction, rather grisly is a gross understatement; Thursday hears retching outside.

“I would advise caution before viewing the corpse, Inspector. It has been, ah, doctored significantly with markings of an occult nature. To a layperson, even casting eyes upon them could be upsetting.”

Morse gives a muffled groan from somewhere near Thursday’s lapel. Thursday loosens his grip, keeping a hand securely on the younger man’s shoulders in case he’s less steady than he feels. Morse’s eyes flutter open, looking unnaturally large in his haggard face.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, sir,” he mutters.

Thursday actually manages a chuckle at that. He gives Morse a hand to his feet, watching him carefully for signs of trouble. “Go outside with Jakes. Tell him that I want you both to stay out there in the fresh air and not to come back in here. Oh, and while you’re out, give the station a shout and tell them what we’ve got. Understood?”

Morse nods. He waves off Thursday’s helping hand and makes his own way to the door. At one point he pauses, and Thursday almost starts forward in alarm before realizing that he is examining the record player. Reverently, he touches the label of the record on the turntable. His head cocks to one side, like a dog hearing an unfamiliar sound.

As though he can feel Thursday’s eyes on him, Morse looks up. “Brahms piano quartet in C minor. He had good taste in music, at least.”

Thursday can barely resist rolling his eyes. “Don’t nick my evidence, Morse.”

Morse cracks a watery grin. “Wouldn’t bother, sir. It’s scratched.” Curiosity apparently satisfied, he beats a hasty retreat.

Thursday cracks his knuckles and turns back to Porter. “Right, then. What have we got?” He steps forward far enough to see into the belly of the chest, and his stomach turns. The corpse is naked, crawling with fat maggots. Three days old, then—the right time. He saw a picture of Carmichael this morning, and the corpse’s hair is the right shade of brown and the right length, but the face is too bloated to get a good ID. Evidently Carmichael was too large to fit in the chest, and so his neck and various limbs have been broken to aid in stuffing him in.

Any of these alone would probably have been enough to challenge a sound man’s stomach, but they’re not even the worse thing about the corpse. That’s the symbols that have been burned into his chest: ever-shifting, bubbling, warping— Thursday tears his eyes away.

He’s had much more experience with the truly bad stuff than either of the lads, though, and he doesn’t allow it to cow him. Porter stares him down through narrowed eyes, evidently looking for signs of weakness. Seeing none, he begins pointing out various features of the symbols.

“This one is a recent invention of a hot-shot Satano-exorcist from Tennessee, invoking the demons of Hell in the secure binding of a spirit to the underworld. This one is a medieval binding. A rough translation would be, Death keep the dead. This one is very old. Babylonian, unless I miss my mark. May the door to your tomb remain ever shut.”

Thursday gives a bitter laugh at that one. “Didn’t work then, did it? We just pried the bloody thing open.”

“It was not meant in a literal sense, Inspector. All these sigils are meant as proof against reanimation.”

“Reanim—you mean necromancy?”

The professor pauses a moment, as though he is committing some painful oversimplification, but nods. “In a sense.”

“Why so many different languages? Why all over his body?”

“My guess is that whoever killed Carmichael knew he was involved in the Dark Arts. He may have had countermeasures against any number of these bindings, but probably not all of them. As to why they cover most of his skin… have you heard of Rasputin?”

“Russian ‘holy’ man. Completely insane, impossible to kill. Escaped police custody in Moscow after an absurd run of not-dying and currently thought to be wreaking havoc in Ukraine.”

“Rasputin has invented some kind of remote-activating resurrection spell that is on a literal dead man’s switch. About the third time the Bolsheviks managed to hang him, one of them had the bright idea to tattoo one of these bindings onto his arm. When the resurrection spell activated, it was counteracted.”

“So the binding worked.”

“Yes. Until one of Rasputin’s followers dug him up, chopped the arm off, and viola! Rasputin est mort—vive Rasputin. There’s really only a mad husk left, of course—true resurrection is impossible. But that doesn’t stop the cult of people around him.”

Thursday shakes his head at the perversity of the world that allows Rasputin to walk the earth and good men to dwell quietly underneath it. But then again, maybe that’s part of what being a good man is: accepting death as a part of being human, rather than running from it until humanity has been ripped away.

He realizes Porter is looking at him expectantly. “Er… who would have had the expertise to do this?”

“Any number of people at Oxford.”

“Of course,” Thursday sighs. “If you would, send us a list of names, but let’s go ahead and skip to the good bit. Is Carmichael’s tutor among them?”

“Riscar? Bit of a bungler, in my opinion,” Porter sniffs.

“Not capable, then?”

“Oh, he has the book learning, I’ll give him that. Not much for the practical side.”

“Anyone else with the power in Oxford?”

“Church officials,” Porter says at once. “They’re all trained in this sort of thing. It’s standard practice for putting a Dark practitioner down, especially once the buggers caught wind of how Rasputin was doing it. If there are any S.A.S. veterans in town, they might have been trained during the war.”

“What about… what about a vampire?”

Porter, who has been answering Thursday’s questions calmly, almost dismissively, nearly chokes on his own spit. He turns to face Thursday in full. “There’s one in town!?”

“We have to investigate every possible line of inquiry—“

“Oh, good Christ.” Porter runs his hands over his face, sinks heavily into a nearby armchair. “Yes, one of them could manage it easily. Many of the oldest ones are accomplished sorcerers in addition to being the stuff of bloody nightmares.”

“Ah.” Thursday has never heard an Oxford professor curse before. He feels a surge of absurd affection for the shabby old academic. “Well, you’ve been very helpful. Uniforms and pathology should be coming by soon. If you find or remember anything else, or when you finish that list, you have the station’s number. Don’t hesitate to call us up.”

“Right-o,” Porter says hollowly. Thursday slaps him on the shoulder as he leaves the room.

Beating a hasty retreat down Oberon College’s damp halls, Thursday lights his pipe with trembling fingers and takes a deep drag. He encounters Morse and Jakes in an alcove sheltered from the rain and wind. The colour has mostly returned to Morse’s face, although not enough to make up for the lad’s perpetual peakiness. Jakes still looks bloody awful, and has already trod out at least two cigarettes on the ground. A third is between his lips, but instead of holding it with his usual casual slouch he is smoking it like any moment someone is going to snatch it away. God. Both of them inducted into the club of men who’ve seen things you Can’t Unsee. Thursday had been hoping to spare them a little longer. Neither of them is going to be in any fit state to work tomorrow.

Briefly, he fills them in on what Porter told him. When he’s done, both men look numb, faces blank, eyes wide and empty.

“We’re going to the pub,” Thursday announces, throwing a hand each on the lads’ shoulders. “God knows we need it.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short pause this week before things heat up next chapter, and even a little Monica for you! As always, thanks to everyone who has commented and left kudos <3

_A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,_   
_A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,_   
_A pint of beer to wash it down,_   
_And a jolly good fire to burn him._   
_Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!_   
_Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!_

\--The Fifth of November, English folk verse

 

CHAPTER FIVE

Morse moans as consciousness begins to throb in his head. He’s sprawled out on his face in a rather undignified manner, but he can tell from the smell of dust and the scratchiness of the sheets that this is his bed.

After a bit of time contemplating his cracking headache there’s not much to be done but roll over and open his eyes. This proves to be a mistake, as the light cranks up the headache by a factor of three or four. Morse realizes he is still wearing his street clothes. Not only that, but his street clothes reek of alcohol. Morse tries to puzzle this out for a moment when suddenly he comes to three uncomfortable realizations, namely 1) he can no longer call himself a teetotaler because he drank at least six pints of bitter last night, maybe more, 2) this must be what a hangover feels like, and 3) he met the girl from the flat across the hall last night; he doesn’t remember her name, but he does have a pretty firm suspicion that he asked her out on a date.

He grinds the heels of his palms into his eyeballs and moans.

Self-pity is all very well and good but his mouth tastes like something died in it. Possibly his self-respect, definitely his sobriety. He manages to shamble over to the sink, brush his teeth, and splash his face with water. He doesn’t bother with breakfast. Anyway, the way the sun is sheeting in between the curtains it’s probably closer to lunchtime…what day of the week is it? It’s Friday, isn’t it, it’s Friday, and he’s late for work—

He throws on his coat and hat, muttering self-recriminations under his breath. Hand on doorknob, he sees that someone has taped a note to the back of the door. The paper has been ripped from one of the notebooks they get down at the station; the ink is black; the handwriting, Thursday’s.

_Morse—_

_You and Jakes both have the day off. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES are you to come to the station today. For the sake of your own sanity you are to STAY HOME. You are on what is called a ‘mental health day.’ All of us take them occasionally (especially after days like yesterday) and they are PERFECTLY FINE._

_Thursday_

_P.S. – The girl across the hall from you is named Monica. You asked her to the Bonfire Night festivities—well done! She said she’d think about it. Don’t you dare back out if she says yes. I’ll get you put on plainclothes duty if need arises._

Morse doesn’t know whether to be mortified or grateful and finally decides on a bit of both. And it seems like Jakes is in a similar situation. He probably has a note on the inside of his door mentioning Morse. That’s fair—Thursday likely (correctly) assumed that neither man’s pride would allow him to stay home if the other had returned to his duties already.

In truth, Jakes looked like he needed it yesterday. Morse had emerged from the college doors to see him wiping off his mouth, slouched over the bin into which he had plainly just emptied his breakfast. Then he had smoked about a quarter pack of cigarettes in fifteen minutes despite Morse’s awkward half-attempts at encouraging him to maybe not do that? no? okay. Then he had been sick again, and then he’d smoked some more. He’d never once made eye contact or attempted to speak. Likely the only thing that had saved him from a breakdown had been embarrassment at Morse’s presence; something in him had been seriously disturbed by what he’d seen.

What he’d seen… Morse feels himself flush as it occurs to him that very likely Thursday thinks Morse saw it as well, that the sight of it was the source of his humiliating turn in Carmichael’s bedroom. In truth, it was the smell—the smell, and a horrifying miasma of fear and dark magic. Morse isn’t sure if the other men could feel it as acutely as he, but he knows one thing: had he actually laid eyes upon the inside the trunk that became Carmichael’s coffin, it would have been much, much worse. Pity for Jakes wrenches in his chest.

Which leads to the undeniable fact that he now has the day off even though he doesn’t completely deserve it. He should go in.

First thing’s first, though—he has to make abject apologies to his neighbour for his behaviour last night.

He splashes some more water on his face, then on his comb before tugging it through his hair. He strips out of yesterday’s rumpled and, frankly, overripe shirtsleeves. Oh, good, he’s managed to spill something sticky on himself. He’s wearing his last clean trousers, so those stay. One clean white shirt remains hanging in his wardrobe, and he pulls it on along with a jacket and checks himself in the mirror. There. He looks almost presentable.

The woman across the hall—Monica—opens her door after a moment, stifling a yawn. She’s pretty, even though it’s obvious from the state of her hair that she just got out of bed. Dark skin, white teeth, nicely-shaped eyes.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Morse blurts.

Monica’s expression moves from sleepiness to recognition. “Oh! You’re the man from last night. Morse, was it?”

Morse nods helplessly. “Yes, that—that was me. I’m very sorry, really, to have bothered you. Er. Usually I’m not like that. Far more likely to disturb you with opera than with… drunken carousing, or whatever it was. I apologize.”

Monica laughs. “I was already awake last night, so no need to apologize for waking me then. We ran into each other when I was coming back from my shift at hospital about midnight. I’m a nurse.”

“Oh! Oh, well, I’m sure I was an idiot anyway.” Morse finds himself smiling, an involuntary response to her laughter. He can see why his drunken self saw fit to ask her out. “Er… did I mention anything about… about Bonfire Night? Tonight, that is?”

Another laugh. “You did, come to think of it!” She’s teasing him, but it’s a pleasant sort of harassment. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t go with you. I have the same shift this evening—won’t be off work until after midnight, I’m afraid. Maybe we could get coffee sometime, though.”

“Ah. Yes. Well, thank you very much, Monica. And again, so sorry to have woken you this morning, even if I didn’t last night. Sleep well.”

After she closes the door Morse takes a deep breath. Well, he didn’t make too horrible a hash of that. Rather, he was a bit of a twit but she seemed to take it in stride. Not bad, not bad at all.

His stomach makes a rather piteous mewl, reminding him that he does, in fact, have to eat to live. He returns to his apartment and makes himself a cold cheese sandwich. The headache fades gradually, especially once he starts in on a glass of water.

As he’s sitting there, alone in his apartment, munching meditatively on his rather pathetic lunch, an idea sprouts in his head. He continues with what he was doing, not wishing to disturb it as it unfurls, accommodates more data, branches out. Idea is too small a word; this is a whole theory, a narrative that will explain much of what has happened in Oxford over the last few days. It’s not complete, but it’s nearly there—it’s like his brain worked out the whole thing in his sleep. At its centre spins a record: a Brahms piano quartet in C minor, scratched.

He has to test it first, though, get some proof. Thursday is right—nobody is going to just take an empath’s word on evidence that only he can perceive. He needs to find something that even a plain vanilla human could accept, and he knows just the way to do it. Reaching down, he unplugs his record player. Carefully he removes _Madame Butterfly_ and puts it in its rightful place, then fetches a pillowcase and drapes it over the player as proof against the wintery drizzle outside. He takes a solid grip on the heavy piece of equipment, lifts it off the table, and carries it down to the station.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yes, the song at the beginning is the conclusion of the rather more famous "Remember, remember, the fifth of November."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all have a general idea how record players work :)
> 
> The Brahms piece Morse is talking about is the Piano Quartet in C minor, 4th movement (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytsLzJxAizw). I imagine he's referring to the moment a bit after the 8-minute mark. But if you like classical music, I highly recommend listening to the whole piece. The first movement can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPF2GogbHkU

_Most true it is, that I have looked on truth_   
_Askance and strangely;_

-Sonnet CX, William Shakespeare

CHAPTER SIX

The word for Thursday’s face when he sees Morse back in the station doors with a bulky, pillowcase-covered object in his arms, at 7 p.m. on Guy Fawkes Day, is somewhere between _incensed_ and _bewildered_. When Morse sees him, nods a greeting, and disappears into the evidence room without any further explanation, both of these emotions increase in roughly equal proportion.

“Morse!” Thursday says, shoving the evidence room door open, “What in heaven’s name are you on about?”

Morse looks up from the record player, which he has just plugged into the wall. “I think I’ve got it, sir.” He pulls a paperbound book stamped OXFORD CENTRAL LIBRARY out of his inside jacket pocket and hands it over to Thursday. “Read at the bookmark, sir.”

Thursday does as he’s told, confusion and curiosity momentarily surpassing annoyance as his dominant emotion. “Thought I told you to stay home,” he tries halfheartedly, flipping the book open. He can see why Morse got it at Oxford Central; it’s not at all the Bodelian’s standard academic fare, a penny paperback called _My Life in Thrall_.

 _The moment I saw her was like waking up after a decade sleepwalking, like being splashed with cold water, or jolted with electricity_ , Thursday reads _. But the electricity I felt was love. Suddenly my limbs were my own again; suddenly my thoughts and desires and humanity returned. The connection between me and that dull, brutal will had snapped. I fell to my knees, tears streaming down my face. There was no longer the urge to do the will of my master. There was only the urge to be near her._

“Rather gushy, isn’t it?” He’s annoyed. The station is almost abandoned—nearly everyone is on duty for crowd control at the festivities, which should be getting started soon. He wants to go home to his family, get a bite of dinner before he, too, has to go out and man the crowds.

Morse looks up from the file cabinet he opened while Thursday was reading. “Oh, I wasn’t reading it for the prose. It’s the translation of the account an alleged thrall of a vampire, after he escaped from the creature’s mental compulsion.”

“I’ve never heard of such a case.”

“It happened in Japan in 1868, never validated by Western experts. The novel sold quite well in Japan, and was taken quite seriously, but here its authenticity has been questioned. The only press that would pick it up insisted on sensationalizing it quite a bit. I found it housed in the fiction section.”

“How on earth did you know about it?”

“Asked the librarian for firsthand accounts of what it was like to be a thrall.”

“And let the public know we have a vampire on the loose on Bonfire Night. Lovely.”

“I didn’t approach her as a police officer, sir. I think she thought I wanted it for—well, anyway, she gave me quite an odd look as I left. Though that might have had something to do with the record player.”

Thursday snorts. “Why’d you want a firsthand account?”

“Because,” Morse says, taking a deep breath, “I needed to compare it to what I felt on Mary Potsham, and what I felt on the record I touched yesterday. No, please, let me explain. What you said the other day about the narcotic in vampire venom, it got me thinking. I think the same narcotic venom that allows them to paralyze people they feed on also allows them to make people into thralls.”

“You think Mary Potsham was a thrall, not a meal.” Thursday muses. “So she was being controlled by the vampire long before she died. That’s what you felt on the record.”

“Yes, sir. It was much fainter than it was on the body, but it was definitely present. That same warmth…” Morse trails off, a dreamy look in his eyes, but masters himself. “But the signal was very complex. She experienced several drastically different emotions while holding it. At first, I’d thought that Riscar killed Carmichael, and maybe Carmichael had killed Mary Potsham earlier in the night in some kind of rite. Or maybe Riscar killed her because she’d seen something.”

“But then you confirmed Riscar’s alibi.”

Morse nods. “He couldn’t have done it in person. Carmichael didn’t kill Mary, sir. Mary killed _him_. She was in thrall at the time, so afterwards she returned to her master, who killed her and threw her body in the river.”

Thursday feels a grim expression settle into his face. “Disposing of the evidence. It also makes sense of the blood under her fingernails—she practically tore Carmichael apart. Thralls are strong.” This an almost ludicrous understatement; thralls are as strong or stronger than vampires. In North Africa, one broke through their lines unarmed and still took down a good portion of Thursday’s platoon before a well-placed hack with a claymore ended its rampage. He pauses, a misgiving tickling his thoughts. “So why would a vampire send its thrall after Carmichael? What would he have to gain?”

“I don’t know, sir. But I think I have another reason why the vampire wanted to dispose of Mary Potsham as quickly as possible. I think she was starting to fight back.” He pulls a record out of the filing cabinet. Thursday recognizes it as the same one that Morse held yesterday in Carmichael’s room. A long, ugly scratch bisects its fragile grooves; Morse is never going to get it to play properly.

Morse points at the very origin of the scratch. “When this scratch was made, the needle was here.” He sets the record gently on his own player, setting the needle down one ring outward from the scratch, just downstream of where the damage begins. “We’ll probably only get a few seconds, but I think this will confirm my theory.”

He starts the record playing, and Thursday hears what is undoubtedly the emotional climax of a stirring piano quartet. Morse watches the needle intently, snatching the arm up from the surface of the record just before it reaches the scratch. “Yes, that was it,” he breathes, half to himself.

“That was what?”

“What reminded Mary Potsham of who she was, if only for a moment. What broke the hold the creature had on her. Remember, Mary was a concert pianist. On the way over her, I asked her flatmate to list some of her favorite pieces.” He pulls a crumpled piece of notebook paper out of his trouser pocket and holds it up triumphantly. “This—Brahms, C minor—was one of them. The emotional connection she felt to this record was strong enough to temporarily disrupt the psychic lock on her.”

Thursday pulls a face. “A song, Morse? Really?” He holds up the book. “This man was seeing the woman he loved. Could a simple piece of music have such an effect on someone?”

“On a musician like Mary? Yes.” Morse’s tone brooks no argument. “In any case, I can feel it on the record. It confused me yesterday, but it’s—it’s awakening. It’s centering. And it’s confusion and fear at what she sees, at what she hasn’t yet understood.”

Thursday sighs. “That’s all very well and good for you, Morse, but we’re in the same boat as with Riscar. We need hard evidence or we’ll never convince anybody else of this.”

“I’m getting to that, sir. Now, it was this specific, very intense emotional point in the piece at which Mary began to awaken. At that point, the record was still whole, but Carmichael was already dead. It’s hard to see, but you can make out a splatter of blood that’s been interrupted by the scratch, indicating that the scratch occurred later. Mary, coming out of a kind of fog, walked over to the record player—and that’s when the vampire tried to reassert its control. In the struggle, Mary knocked the record off the turntable, scratching it and breaking the needle in the process. Without the music, the vampire resumed control and forced her to return to it, and then it killed her.”

Thursday blinks when he realizes that Morse is now waiting for him to speak. “Morse, what part of that exactly is solid, physical evidence I can take to a superior?”

“Well, the scratch in the record, of course.”

Thursday resists the impulse to drag his hands down his face and groan. “That’s it?”

“It supports my story!” Morse insists.

“It could support any number of other stories as well and you know it, Morse! We’re grasping at straws here.”

For a moment, Morse actually has the gall to look offended, but then abruptly the stubborn jut of his jaw subsides. He rubs at the back of his neck, elbow jutting out, all awkward angles again. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s just—it’s frustrating for me, to know and not be able to say how. Maybe… maybe if we told them that…”

“No.” Thursday has to come down hard on this. “Absolutely not. Telling them won’t make a difference in the world. It will only make them trust you less. And Morse, even with this new explanation, you haven’t answered a critical question.”

“What?”

“ _Why_ , Morse? What would a damned _vampire_ want with an Oxford student, even of the Dark Arts? Why kill him so—so thoroughly? Why come into town at all?”

Morse goes completely still, eyes wide, scarcely breathing. “I—I hadn’t—“

Thursday can’t believe it. The lad hadn’t thought of _motive_? Motive, in a bloody murder investigation!?

Suddenly Morse’s hand is on his arm, clutching so tightly it hurts even under the thick fabric of his jacket, and Thursday realizes that it isn’t lack of a motive that’s got Morse so worked up. “Those people. Tonight. They’re in danger.”

“Morse, calm down. Every year the university throws up massive wards around the whole city centre for the night, so that people can enjoy the fireworks. It’s perfectly safe. Our men are just there to keep people from getting—“

“No, sir. Riscar was on the volunteer committee for making the wards this year. I saw it in his planner, when he handed it over to me for his alibi. He must have made them wrong.”

“Why would he do that? I thought you’d decided Mary had killed Carmichael on behalf of a vampire.”

“Riscar was the one who wanted Carmichael dead. We’ve known that from the moment I shook his hand. I don’t know why exactly—maybe Riscar didn’t want a rival practitioner of the Dark Arts usurping him. But since Carmichael was researching necromancy Riscar needed him killed the right way, and he needed it done discreetly, so that Riscar’s own predelictions in that direction wouldn’t be revealed. He hired an expert to do it; that was the vampire. Riscar needed to pay the creature somehow. But how do you pay a vampire? They’re not interested in money. The only thing they’re really after is—“

“Human blood,” Thursday breathes. “So you think Riscar set up a deal. He would sabotage the wards—“

“And the vampire would take down Carmichael for him. Carmichael had wards around his room, so the vampire wouldn’t have been able to enter. That’s why it needed a thrall. Someone Carmichael would let in. A pretty girl, for instance.”

Thursday shakes his head, processing Morse’s words, turning over the theory for inconsistencies. It seems to hold together. And if it’s right—and Thursday trusts Morse, believes that he is right—then they have precious little time.

“Come on,” he snarls, grabbing Morse and half-dragging him out of the evidence room, “We’re getting Professor Porter.”

They charge out into the entryway. It occurs to Thursday that if there truly is a vampire attack coming tonight they would do well to be properly armed. He ducks into the next room to have a word with the duty sergeant. Who is...

He swears internally, but keeps his voice calm. "Jakes," he asks, "what are you doing here?" 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who have commented and kudo'd :)  
> Fair warning: cliffhanger ahead!

_And all that winter, when at night_   
_The wind blew from the mountain-peak,_   
_’Twas worth your while, though in the dark,_   
_The churchyard path to seek_

_The Thorn_ , William Wordsworth

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

Thursday stops so suddenly Morse almost slams into his back.

“Jakes, what are you doing here?” Thursday doesn’t sound angry, or even surprised. His voice has gone calm. Thursday does that in crisis situations; Morse wonders if he knows he’s doing it.

“Felt better. Decided the least I could do was sit the desk tonight while everyone else was out on patrol.”

Morse peeks out over Thursday’s shoulder and sees that D.S. Jakes is indeed sitting at the duty desk with a cigarette between his lips. He looks awful, with great black shadows beneath his eyes, but his hair and his dress are as sharp as ever. “Hello, Morse,” he says, completely nonchalant.

“Jakes, run to the supply room, fetch us three sets of blood-touched gear. Bring it with you and meet Morse and me at Porter’s rooms at Kendall College. You know where they are?”

Jakes nods once, casual air evaporating in an instant.

“Good.” Thursday leaves the station without another word, Morse bobbing along in his wake. The night is cold and drizzly, with wind whipping their coats and spitting ice-water in their faces. Morse dives into the Jag and Thursday joins him. Traffic going towards the university is light; they’re headed away from the city centre, where the festivities will be held, and anyway most people are probably already there. Morse flicks on the windshield wipers and drives like a maniac, trusting the Jag’s tyres on the rain-slicked streets. They reach the college in minutes; Thursday is out the car and banging on Porter’s door before Morse can even throw it into park.

The old professor is home, thank God, although already wearing his dressing gown. He shrugs on a heavy overcoat as Thursday gives him the most condensed version of events he can. When he gets to the bit about Riscar, Porter puts in, “More bad news, then—he missed his committee meeting this evening. Nowhere to be found, I'm afraid.”

“You think he could have sabotaged the wards, then?”

“Oh, certainly, certainly, please, to the city centre at once!”

Jakes pulls up in a squad car just as Porter is piling into the Jag. He has his arms full of gear, all wrapped up in a tarp. When he sights Morse, his eyes narrow. “You haven’t had combat training yet, have you?”

Morse stammers out something; Jakes rolls his eyes and mutters, “Typical.”

Morse gets the rear passenger door and Jakes piles into the Jag with the rest of them. They distribute the gear as Morse drives. Morse has never seen most of it before—has never in his life been trained in the use of an edged weapon, for Christ’s sake!—but Thursday insists that he carry at least a steel dagger.

Jakes has a sabre and two knives; Thursday takes a shortsword and steel knuckledusters. Porter, for his part, refuses to take any kind of weapon, instead holding up the Star of David around his neck. “I assure you that I will be of no use against a vampire in a physical fight. Objects of spiritual significance can repel vampires as effectively as holy ground, if the faith of the bearer is sincere.”

“We’ll be dropping you off at the festivities anyway, Professor. If the vampire gets to you, then we’ll have already failed.” Thursday notes the possibility of their deaths with the casualness someone else might mention the time of day. “Morse, turn here. The wards begin on this street.”

Morse obeys, the car almost slipping on a patch of black ice. He steadies the Jag and brings it to a halt just beyond a pair of policemen whom he vaguely recognizes. Thursday and Porter pile out of the car and Morse hears Thursday giving orders. As he’s doing so, Porter leans his head back in the car. “The wards will go up automatically in response to detected dark magic. The detector would be very difficult to stealthily sabotage. However, it would be simplicity itself to insert a weak link into the chain of protective spells that go up. I suspect that if the vampire attacks it will be initially repelled. However, the wards may fail within minutes if it persists. You must distract the vampire long enough for me to find the weakness and repair it. Understood?”

Morse and Jakes nod.

Thursday, done briefing the uniforms, gets back in the car.

“Right,” he says, shutting the door on a violent gust of wind, “We’ll patrol the perimeter of the wards. The men are radioing in an alert for possible vampire attack. Everyone on the perimeter ranked sergeant or higher has iron daggers, but there aren’t enough of them and the daggers are mostly for show. Vampires are tough; you need a sword to do real damage.”

“Sir,” Morse says, “I think he’ll come from the northeast. We found Mary Potsham’s body in the river northeast of town, and it’s likely she was downstream from where she was killed. I would bet he’s hiding out there somewhere.”

“Any objections, Jakes?”

“No, sir.”

“Northeast it is, then.”

They’d approached from the south, so they end up covering a good portion of the western side of the square on the way. Thursday keeps fussing with his pocketwatch, looking at some kind of dial, but Morse can’t get a better look while he’s driving, especially under these conditions. The temperature has dropped, and the rain on the pavement is now mixed with nearly-invisible black ice.

They’re almost due north of the city centre when Thursday says, “Stop. It’s here.”

“Sir, how—“

Thursday holds up the pocketwatch. “Dark detector. Gift from Win. Needle jumped off the scale just now.”

That is not a reassuring thought. Morse parks the Jaguar by the simple expedient of diving over to the side of the road, and they all clamber out of the car. Almost immediately Morse senses something wrong, like a pressure in his ears. “I can feel it,” he whispers, facing north along the street, where his unease is strongest. He draws his dagger, feeling faintly ridiculous but mostly just terrified. To his left, Thursday’s carrying the sword pointed at the ground. On the other side of Thursday, Jakes has the sabre at half-draw, eyes glinting as he scans the darkness, coat buttoned up to his neck. For once he doesn’t have a cigarette in his mouth.

The street they’re on is fairly broad, by Oxford standards, but completely abandoned. The streetlights illuminate the slurry mix falling from the sky, yellow comets plummeting to the earth and freezing there. For a moment, all is still. Only Morse’s sixth sense, a vague premonition of evil, warns him that this is not a night like any other.

The whole street is bathed in sudden red light as a whistle pierces the frigid air. Morse flinches, but it is only the first of the fireworks going up from behind them. The shadows it casts grow shorter as the rocket rises, then scatter with a boom as it explodes.

The streetlights go out all at once.

Silence returns. But Jakes might have seen something; he is squinting into the dark, drawing out the sabre with a scrape. A greasy, dark feeling settles into Morse’s stomach. He wonders if it is fear only, or if the creature is growing closer.

“Sir.” Jakes’ voice startles Morse, almost makes him jump.

“Yes?”

“I see it. In the middle of the street. It’s just…watching.”

“Good eyes.” A second firework goes up, this one green, and this time Morse spots it: a patch of blackness so dark it looks like a hole cut from reality.

“What if it just goes around us?”

“It won’t, Jakes. Will you, vampire?” Thursday turns the last three words into a challenge, hurled at the creature that stands not fifteen yards from them. “You can’t risk us cutting you down from behind while you’re trying to break through the wards!”

Morse realizes his hands are trembling as he holds the dagger. Now that the creature is aware it has been spotted, the full force of its malevolence and hunger falls upon him. This creature will rip his heart from his chest and drink out steaming blood, if it gets the chance. A scream bubbles up in Morse’s throat, and he gulps it down with a whimper. He glances left. The whites of Jakes’ eyes are showing all the way around his pupils, but his jaw is set and the sabre is up.

 _Indeed not_ , the creature says. The voice is in the wind, or in their heads, and it is not remotely human. Like two stones scraping together; Morse’s mind immediately supplies the image of the lid of a crypt being dragged shut. If such a voice can be amused, even bored, that is how the creature sounds.

Dark crashes over them like a wave.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Chapter Four put the "graphic" in "graphic violence," this chapter supplies the "violence."

_And so it is for each man_   
_The praise of the living,_   
_of those who speak afterwards,_   
_that is the best epitaph,_   
_that he should work_   
_before he must be gone_   
_bravery in the world_   
_against the enmity of devils,_   
_daring deeds_   
_against the fiend,_   
_so that the sons of men_   
_may praise him afterwards,_   
_and his fame afterwards_   
_may live with the angels._   
_[...]_   
_The days are gone_   
_of all the glory_   
_of the kingdoms of the Earth_

_The Seafarer,_ Old English poem

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

The vampire piles into Thursday with juggernaut speed, leaping over the sword and hitting him high across the chest. Thursday goes down hard, cracking his head against the cobblestones as the sword goes flying. The vampire raises its arms, both hands fisted together in preparation for a skull-crushing blow, but Jakes comes in with the sabre and the creature is forced to dodge, rolling off Thursday and nearly flattening Morse in the process.

Morse slips on the ice and falls, but gets his dagger up in time to block a swipe of the creature’s three-inch fangs. The vampire howls and flinches back, its lip cut and dripping black blood. Jakes, the only copper still on his feet, presses the advantage as Thursday struggles to rise, head spinning from its meeting with the street. He has to get his sword—it’s too dark to see—

A series of fireworks explode overhead. “There!” Morse screams, pointing as Thursday staggers to his feet. Thursday looks where Morse points, finds the sword. It glitters, reflecting the colours in the sky, over twenty feet away. Before he even gets moving a cry from Jakes sends him whirling back around.

The vampire has caught Jakes’ sword arm in its fist and is twisting it the wrong way. Jakes falls to his knees, face contorted with pain. Thursday sprints to the sword, in the opposite direction of Jakes, as Morse picks up his dagger from the street in the light of another rising firecraker.

The vampire shrugs its shoulder, almost casually, and Thursday hears Jakes’ arm snap even from twenty feet away. Morse lets out a terrified yell and darts forward, dagger flashing, but the creature pirouettes on its back foot and slams a heel into Morse’s stomach. The D.C. goes flying backwards, hitting the hood of a car and rolling up over the roof before finally falling limp to the pavement.

Thursday snatches up his sword.

The vampire gazes levelly at him. It still has hold of Jakes’ arm, and the man is helpless with pain for at least a moment.

 _You are still in my way_. _Stand aside and this one lives_.

“You know what? I think you’re worried.” Thursday begins walking towards the creature, slow and patient, like a hunter. He won’t repeat Morse’s mistake; charging a vampire is a recipe for a quick death. “You think I’ll kill you.” Above all, Thursday must prevent the vampire from moving forward. Porter needs time to find the flaw in the wards and fix it.

Sleet shines gold in the light of the fireworks as it slides down his upraised sword.

A sneer comes to the creature’s face. _You are food_. Its free hand closes around Jakes’ neck, lifting him effortlessly off the ground. The man struggles. A flash of iron—but no, the vampire deflects the second knife with contemptuous ease. It releases Jakes’ mangled arm, making eye contact with Thursday as it does so. Then, holding Thursday’s gaze, it fingers open the top button of Jakes’ coat and gently pulls back his collar, exposing the skin. The man writhes furiously, kicking and clawing at the creature, but his efforts are useless against its inhuman strength.

The creature’s fangs sink in. Jakes makes a noise like a sigh. In an instant, he stops struggling, his head lolling back like a dead man’s, eyes still open. The vampire makes a little sound of pleasure, its eyes glittering as they bore into Thursday’s. Darkness falls momentarily, a pause in the fireworks.

It takes a minute and a half to drain a human completely of blood. Thursday remembers telling that to Morse what feels like eons ago. Thursday doubts he could hold off a vampire for that long. If he wants to give Porter the maximum amount of time to get the wards up, the smart thing to do would be to let the creature feed. And some would say that death is better than the fate that awaits Jakes when he awakens tomorrow night.

More fireworks go up, illuminating the whole street, reflecting on wet stone. Thursday strides forward, swinging the sword one-handed to loosen up his wrist.

To hell with the smart thing. Jakes is one of his.

The vampire’s fangs slide out of Jakes’ shoulder with a wet sucking sound, and the man’s body falls limp to the street. Thursday brings his sword up to guard, steps over Jakes as the vampire backs up, uncanny eyes searching for a way through. Thursday tries for a quick attack. Its balance shifts, and it darts forward under the swinging sword—

Just in time for Thursday to slam the knuckledusters in its face.

The vampire crashes sideways into a parked car and bounces off, turning the movement into a leap over Thursday’s head. Thursday slashes out and is rewarded when the creature lands heavily, clutching at its midsection. Blood, dark as wine, spills onto the wet cobblestones. Thursday tries another slash, but this time the creature is ready, and even injured it’s spectacularly fast. It rolls out of range, turns on its heels. A few steps away from him it shifts, and then there is only a black cloud fleeing the scene.

Straight towards the heart of Oxford.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was also the source of the "Thursday is a BAMF" tag.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: contains gore, major injury of a supporting character, moderate injury of a major character, subtle references to Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, and J.R.R. Tolkien, vampires being creepy, unexplained meat tenderizer, and ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER.
> 
> In other news, thanks to all the kudo-ers and commenters. I love you all <3

_Stands now behind the dear warband_   
_a wondrous high wall, varied with snake-shapes,_   
_warriors forsaken by might of the ash-spears,_   
_corpse-hungry weapons—famous that fate—_   
_and this stone-cliff storms dash on;_   
_snowstorm, attacking, binds all the ground,_   
_tumult of winter, when the dark one comes,_   
_night-shadow blackens, sends from the north_   
_rough hailstorm in anger toward men._

_The Wanderer_ , Old English poem

 

CHAPTER NINE

As far as Morse knows, one moment he’s charging a vampire and the next he’s in enormous pain, resting half on the kerb and half in the street beneath the front bumper of a car. The thought that a vampire is nearby sends his whole body crackling with electric panic, and he manages to stagger to his feet using the car as support. Every breath he takes sears his entire left side, and he can’t move his left arm without agony. He peers into the night, straining his eyes for any glance of the predator, breaths shallow and panicked.

Fireworks go up from the south—only this time, they’re not fireworks. It’s an enormous webbing of white light, an assemblage of stars and hexagons that never seems to repeat itself and dizzies him just to look at. As he watches, the pattern expands, reaching up and out until it becomes a massive dome, easily a hundred feet or more at its apex. The wards. They must be under attack. Which means the creature got past Thursday and Jakes. Which means…

He turns back to the street, heart thudding in his throat, fully expecting to find a pair of sprawled-out corpses. Instead, he sees Thursday kneeling over Jakes’ supine form. Both of Thursday’s hands are clamped over a wound at the join of Jakes’ neck and shoulder; blood is dripping between his fingers. Morse feels dizzy at the sight of it, but the strange electric panic in him won’t let him fall.

“Sir,” Morse calls, and Thursday starts, looking around wildly before his eyes settle on Morse.

“Thank God you’re alive,” he says. “Come here, help me with Jakes.”

Morse walks over, dropping to his knees at Thursday’s side. “What’s happened? Was he bitten?” It’s dark enough that the blood looks black; strangely, Morse finds this easier to deal with than if it were red. Jakes’ eyes are still half-open, though. He looks dead, though his chest rises and falls. Morse’s stomach turns, and he reaches out with his good arm to swipe the man’s eyelids shut.

Thursday does not answer his question; instead, he says, “He’s in danger of bleeding out. We’ve got to get him to hospital. We can’t take pressure off the wound, so you’ll have to clamp down on it with both hands while I lift him up and carry him to the car.”

Morse nods, and tries to raise his left arm to comply with Thursday’s order. There’s a grinding in his shoulder, and he cries out in pain, his vision spotting. “I… I can’t, sir. I can’t move my arm.”

Black despair appears in Thursday’s eyes. “I can’t lift him and stem the bleeding at the same time,” he says hoarsely.

“I know, sir.” Morse hangs his head, struggling to get his breath. Jakes’ whole body is limp, but there’s hardly a mark on him. His face looks eerily peaceful, and Morse, though Thursday refuses to say the words, affirms his original deduction that the man has been bitten. The narcotic makes it look like Jakes has simply fallen asleep, rather than been knocked unconscious in a fight with a monster.

Then Morse is digging in his jacket pocket for the little bottle he’s had there for three days now. If it’s fallen out in the fight he doesn’t know what he’ll do, but—no, there it is! His fingers close on the smelling salts. It’s a struggle to unscrew the lid one-handed, but he manages it.

“Sir, let me wake him with these. He can walk to the car and we’ll drive him to hospital and get the antivenin.” The stuff works about a tenth of the time; maybe Jakes will get lucky. But time is of the essence, and Morse doesn’t even know how long it’s been already.

Thursday’s eyes fall on the bottle of smelling salts and go wide. Morse doesn’t know if anyone has ever woken a victim of the vampire from the long sleep of transformation. Perhaps it will disrupt the process. Perhaps Jakes will snap both their necks and drain them of blood in a mindless hunger.

Thursday nods, turning Jakes so that he faces Morse. Morse holds the bottle in his good hand and places it directly under Jakes’ nose.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then Jakes’ body spasms. He gasps for air, and it turns into a ragged cough. Thursday hangs onto his shoulder gamely, but the trickle of blood increases.

“Jakes! Easy, easy. Everything’s alright.”

Jakes’ eyes find Thursday’s face, pupils blown wide by the narcotic. “It got me, sir. It bit me.” His voice is slurred, barely audible. Morse's gut twists to see a fellow human being so greatly reduced.

“We know. We’re taking you to hospital, but we need your help. Morse is going to fetch the car and bring it round close as he can. You’re going to help me put you in the back while keeping pressure on the wound. Got it?”

Morse realizes that is his cue to fetch the Jag, which he does, driving it round until all that remains for Jakes to do is stand up and half-fall into the backseat. Even so, the man needs Morse’s good arm around his waist to make it happen; the paralytic is still impairing his coordination.

Morse moves with extreme caution. If he touches Jakes skin-to-skin, he’ll get a hit of the vampire venom just like he did back at the morgue, and that’s the last thing anyone needs. It takes over a minute just to get Jakes in the backseat safely.

Then Morse drives them away, but his bad arm and side make shifting gears excruciating. The weather conditions are so dangerous by this point that venturing beyond second gear would be inadvisable anyway.

Thursday sees him flinch as they go over a bump in the road. “A fine picture we must make. Seven working limbs between the three of us.”

“You’ve got more than half of our total pool, sir. Looks like it’s time to redistribute,” Morse says, a smile touching his lips. “Do you know anyone named Igor?”

“My god, a Communist and a vampire in the same night. What’s this world coming to, Jakes?”

Jakes exhales a noise that might be a laugh. Morse checks the rearview mirror. The sergeant is slumped over bonelessly onto Thursday’s shoulder, his lips grey, a stray smear of blood on his cheek. But there is still a black spark of humour in his eyes, which Morse takes as a good sign. Clearly, Jakes cannot have gotten as much of the narcotic as poor Mary Potsham if he is still able to follow a joke.

As he rounds a corner, hoping to find a clear way to the hospital, he is confronted with the sight of Oxford’s wards.

Thursday swears. “Hospital’s inside.”

“Is there any hope of getting through?” Morse asks.

“Not until sunrise.” Thursday leaves his grim conclusion unspoken: by sunrise, Jakes may well bleed out, and if he does not, it will almost certainly be too late for the antivenin to work.

There is a pause, and then:

“Just shoot me, sir.” Jakes says it so quietly Morse can barely hear it over the idling engine.

“Stop joking around, Sergeant.”

“I’m not joking. I’d rather die than become… one of them. Take me out and shoot me while you still can.”

“You’re human, Jakes. I’m not going to shoot you in cold blood.”

“Won’t be human much longer.”

“We’re not giving up on you yet, so stop that kind of talk this instant, and that’s an order.”

Morse throws the Jag into reverse and backs out of the dead-end street.

Jakes closes his eyes and lets out a quiet sob Morse pretends not to hear. Thursday whispers something in the man’s ear, and Jakes makes a movement that can barely be called a nod, some of the pain going out of his face. Morse wonders what promise Thursday has made.

“It occurs to me,” Thursday says, “that, the wards having gone up, we now have an angry vampire on the loose in this mostly-deserted portion of the city. With us.”

“That had occurred to me as well,” Morse says, tight-lipped. “Will we be safe inside the car?”

“It would smash out the glass and kill us easily. Never confront vampire in a confined space if you can help it. Not enough room to swing a sword.”

“Ah. I’ll… I’ll take that under advisement.” Morse guides the Jag carefully to his own rooms, only a few blocks away from the hospital but out of the warded zone.

“Morse… why are we here?” Thursday asks, as Morse throws the car into park.

“I’ve got a nurse that lives across the hall from me. Monica. Figured we could fetch her and move to a church.” After all, Morse has reasoned, it would be no good to go straight to a church and have Jakes bleed to death before dawn arrives.

“Oh yes. Monica. Lovely girl.”

Even on the edge of despair, Jakes tries for a mocking leer. “Gonna ask her to the fireworks again next year, Morsey?”

“I doubt she’ll have me at this rate,” Morse says, climbing out of the car. He unlocks the front door and hurries inside, charging up the stairs despite the pain in his side at every jarring step. He pounds on the door to Monica’s flat, praying that she came home before the wards went up.

She opens the door, looking tired and angry, but freezes open-mouthed at Morse’s appearance.

“Help me. Downstairs. Vampire attack,” he gasps. He must look a sight, soaking wet, one arm hanging limp from his shoulder and Jakes’ blood all down his front.

“Fetch towels and salt. Salt’s in the cupboard, towels are under the sink in the loo.” She grabs a first aid kit from under the kitchen table and is down the stairs in an instant.

Morse does as he’s told. Monica’s back windowpane is broken and letting in cold air; she’s covered it with some tape and cardboard, which are insufficient against the weather. He finds the needed items, stowing the salt in his coat pocket and taking as many towels as he can find under his good arm. Starting down the stairs, he is surprised to see Thursday’s back blocking the passage.

“Sir?”

“Checked my watch--it’s too close. We’ll be ambushed in the Jag if we try to move. Best to use your threshold.”

Morse’s heart sinks. The state of his threshold doesn’t bear thinking about. But he trusts Thursday’s judgment. If the man thinks they have a better chance of surviving hunkered down in Morse’s flat than they do striking out for holy ground, then here is where Morse will make his stand.

Monica and Thursday make good progress getting Jakes up the stairs. Monica has some kind of pressure bandage on Jakes’ shoulder that is already bright red with blood, but it means that both of them can focus for the moment on carrying the man.

“In here,” Morse says, opening the door to his flat for them. They lay Jakes down on the sofa. Monica elevates his feet on the sofa arm then, evidently not satisfied, adds several cushions until his legs are resting about a foot higher than the rest of his body. The man’s skin is dead white and clammy, and his eyes gaze off into space without any spark of interest in them.

Morse, recognizing that Monica is treating Jakes for shock, fetches a blanket from the bedroom and spreads it over him. Monica is already examining the wound.

“Why hasn’t the bleeding stopped?” Morse asks.

“Vampire venom contains a powerful anticoagulant protein. Morse, do you have any meat tenderizer?”

“Meat—meat tenderizer? Er, no, I don’t—“

“Fetch it from my flat. Same shelf as the salt.”

Morse follows her orders as quickly as possible, part of his brain muttering, _Salt and meat tenderizer? Is she going to serve us up to the vampire on a silver platter_? Darting back through the corridor a second time, he feels something inexplicable off. A pressure in his ears…

He slams the door to his flat behind him, startling the others. “It’s coming,” he says.

Thursday checks the little instrument on his watch, swears without heat.

“Right. New plan. Get him off the sofa and onto the floor. Stand close to him. Morse, give me the meat tenderizer and then fetch a cross or your own equivalent. Get ready to defend the threshold.” Monica is already preparing to lift Jakes.

Thursday scrambles to obey her, taking Jakes’ feet. They heave him off the couch on the count of three, then Thursday piles the cushions back up under Jakes’ feet and tucks the blanket in around him. The man only moans. A small circle of blood has stained Morse’s couch—Jakes is still bleeding despite the bandage, and growing weaker.

Morse hands the meat tenderizer over to Monica and then rifles through his flat. Object of faith, object of faith… “I have a Bible in here somewhere…I think…”

“Doesn’t have to be Christian,” Thursday says calmly.

“Doesn’t have to be religious at all,” Monica adds. “You could fend off a blood-touched with that towel if you believed enough.”

“I don’t believe in towels!” Morse snaps. What does he believe in? The pressure in his ears grows stronger, and with it comes the familiar, greasy feel of evil. He tries to concentrate, but when he closes his eyes all he can see is Mary Potsham’s corpse, totally drained of blood.

His eyes fly open. His records.

He grabs a great pile of them just as the door flies open. A dark miasma stands without. Slowly, it coalesces into solid form.

The vampire regards him evenly. Morse notes with some satisfaction that its lip seems to have bled quite a bit from the knife cut he gave it. A dark grey bruise distorts its jawline. Behind him, Monica is… is putting meat tenderizer on Jakes’ wound? A demented laugh escapes Morse before he can check it.

 _Let me in, little food_. The vampire’s nose, nostrils flared with hunger, is maybe half an inch from the invisible plane through the doorway that marks the threshold to Morse’s flat. Iron horseshoes protect the door and windows, although they will barely slow down a creature of this power. Stronger than iron alone is the threshold itself, but that will surely not last the night; the places with the strongest thresholds are old family homes, and Morse is a bachelor who has been living in this flat for a grand total of two weeks.

“You’re just going to break down the door,” Morse says. “Why in hell would I invite you?”

_Because you have already given up, perhaps?_

Morse glances over his shoulder. Monica has put down the meat tenderizer and is now… speaking to the salt? Oh, lovely. But the sight of her sharpens his resolve. “I’m not going to give up on them.”

 _You cannot blame me for trying. Despair is so… sweet to taste_.

Morse’s stomach turns. He holds out the records in front of himself, stepping forward to within an inch of the door. He recognizes the labels: _Madame Butterfly_ , of course, and _Tosca. Rigoletto. La traviata_.

The vampire chuckles, a horrible scraping sound deep in its inhuman throat. _You are adorable_ , it croons. Its body loses shape, morphing once more into the horrid black cloud. The black cloud draws closer to the door until it is pressed up against it, a wall of pitiless ink.

Hideous pressure blooms in Morse’s chest. He staggers, straightens himself painfully.

“That’s the threshold, Morse. It’s your place, so you feel it. Stay focused,” Thursday coaches.

Morse grunts heavily as another wave of pressure hits him. It feels like something is squeezing his heart. He forces himself to stay upright, clutching the records to his chest like the last chance he knows they are. Behind him, Monica continues to address the salt. It is quite a long speech, and in a language he does not recognize. She seems to be repeating herself a lot, though. The wild notion strikes him that it might be a spell, but spells are for well-educated people: Oxford dons and the like. Monica is a nurse, certainly a respectable enough position, but not nearly eminent enough for her to be a magic user.

After five or six minutes of pain that is steady but not unbearable, the feeling of constriction in his chest mounts until he is seeing spots. Agony stretches for a span of maybe three or four seconds, and Morse screws his eyes shut against it.

Abruptly, the pain vanishes. Morse opens his eyes, gasping.

The vampire’s grin is half a foot from his face.

Morse shoves the records out in front of him despite the spike of sweaty pain it provokes in his shoulder, forcing the creature to give ground. Just behind him the flat opens up, and the vampire could conceivably slip by him to attack the others. Either it goes through him, or it doesn’t get in at all.

The vampire head-fakes, just to toy with him, and Morse flinches, but doesn’t fall back an inch.

He focuses on the objects in his hands. In the presence of the vampire’s dark miasma, they glow faintly with his faith. Exultation blazes up in his heart.

The vampire takes another step back, hissing. It looks faintly puzzled. _These are the same sort of disc that almost broke my hold on my thrall. Tell me human, has your kind found a new religion?_

A mad grin comes to Morse’s face. “What, this? Just music. Oldest religion there is.” His faith burns brighter, and the vampire takes another cautious step back. They stand at an impasse for a moment, but then the creature creeps forward, testing the boundaries. Morse feels its strength pitted against his and grits his teeth. The creature presses harder, but Morse has poured love into these records. They are as holy to him as any crucifix is to a priest, and he has sacrificed countless hours at their altar. He has broken down their music, note by note; their music has broken him down, sacred moment by sacred moment. He has sung along and listened in silence, has swayed and dreamed to this music; learned beauty from it, fallen in love to it, had his heart broken, had his faith in life restored when he thought it was lost forever.

“You’re not getting past me,” he says through clenched teeth, and as he says the words he knows they’re true. He will hold the creature at bay as long as he can stand.

The vampire bares its own teeth in response, pressing him, willing him to yield.

The world narrows to just Morse and the vampire, hope and darkness. An age passes in the blink of an eye.

At last, the vampire can no longer endure. It pulls back, the strength of the assault lessening, and distantly Morse realizes that his arms are numb up to the elbows and his body drenched in cold sweat. His side is on fire.

 _Your faith is strong, human_ , the vampire admits. And then, softly, the creature laughs. _Any other night, you would have defeated me_. _And in truth, it would have been much more amusing to kill you myself._

_But you see, I have no need to get past you. Not when I have a thrall on the inside._

Morse’s blood runs cold.

Morse cannot turn; to do so would be to offer the creature the door. He can only stand where he is, stock still, as chaos erupts at his back.


	10. Chapter 10

"The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes   
Till beauty shines in all that we can see.   
War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise,  
And, fighting for our freedom, we are free."

 _Absolution_ , Sigfried Sassoon

 

CHAPTER TEN

If they get out of this alive—which Thursday doubts they will—he’s going to tell Morse that this girl Monica is a keeper.

First, she’d had a decent first aid kit handy, and known how to use it well enough to keep Jakes’ wound from killing him outright.

Second, she’d had the strength to help haul Jakes up a steep and narrow flight of stairs.

Third, she’d saved Jakes again—again, assuming that they’ll survive the night—by treating him for shock in a timely manner.

Fourth, she’d known to treat the still-bleeding wound with meat tenderizer, of all things. As she’d explained to Thursday, meat tenderizer contained enzymes that could break down proteins, such as the anticoagulant in vampire venom. Jakes had stopped bleeding within minutes of its application. His pulse is still thready and weak, his breathing rapid and shallow, but at least he is not actively getting worse.

All of these reasons are also why Thursday does not second-guess Monica now, as she mutters something in another language over a very large canister of kosher salt. Her behavior has all the hallmarks of a witch—the good kind—and Thursday is perfectly fine with letting a witch do as she pleases as long as she pays her taxes and doesn’t kill any sheep she hasn’t paid for in advance.

Thursday has already called the local emergency services on Morse’s home telephone. No one from the hospital can come until sunrise, when the wards come down, but the station is calling up the few men who weren’t already patrolling the Bonfire Night festivities. They’re arming them heavily with iron and sending them over first chance they get.

The cavalry is coming. It’s just a matter of whether they come fast enough.

If Morse can hold the doorway, then they might actually have a chance. He’s standing there now, rigid as a statue, the records glowing with a steady yellow light that is swallowed up in tendrils of inky blackness only a few inches beyond where Morse stands. The vampire has been at bay now for—Thursday checks his watch—twenty-two minutes, eight seconds.

Abruptly the blackness withdraws, and Morse and the vampire have some kind of conversation. Thursday can’t make out the words, but—

A movement slashes in his peripheral vision, and Thursday dodges. The uppercut grazes his cheek, knocking his hat off. He looks down.

Jakes’ eyes are wide open, blazing and empty all at once. Monica leaps up and finishes the phrase she has been reciting to the salt. “Hold him!” she cries, tearing open the canister. Thursday feints left, but not-Jakes doesn’t take the bait. He rolls onto his side, going after Monica.

Thursday, half-hating himself for what he must do, tackles the man and drags him back from where he is attempting to attack the nurse. Jakes squirms more powerfully than Thursday could believe of a man who has had his arm broken, lost a significant amount of blood, been poisoned, and gone into shock—but then, thralls are known for their ridiculous strength.

Still, strength is useless against leverage, and Thursday has all the leverage. He gets Jakes in a chokehold. The man gags, writhes, claws at Thursday’s arm with his fingernails. Thursday doesn’t let up, not even when Jakes’ struggles become more like spasms.

The vampire’s eyes glitter at him from over Morse’s shoulder as it watches Thursday take down one of his own. Perhaps it is disappointed that its plan is failing, but the look in its eyes is far too smug. It thinks it has forced Thursday to compromise himself. Well, maybe it has. Jakes is panting for breath, but Thursday’s arm compresses the blood vessels that lead to his brain—all that oxygen has nowhere to go. His limbs move weakly, uncoordinatedly. All in all, maybe fifteen seconds have passed.

Morse hasn’t budged an inch, the records still glowing. He deserves a bloody medal after all this is through.

Jakes subdued, Monica pours the salt in a large ring encompassing Jakes, Thursday, and herself. The instant the ring is complete, all the muscle tone goes out of Jakes’ body, and he’s suddenly limp in Thursday’s arms. Thursday immediately releases the chokehold and feels for a pulse. After a moment, he finds it, weak, fast, and irregular. The man’s breaths come in shallow gasps, and he doesn’t regain consciousness. Thursday’s stomach turns.

He looks up to Monica. She has one hand over her mouth, eyes wide. Wordlessly, she drops to his side and helps lower Jakes to the ground, keeping them all within the line of salt.

Up from below come shouts and the unmistakable sound of metal weapons being drawn from sheaths. The cavalry has arrived.

Evidently the vampire realizes this as well. Its eyes widen, and then its form dissolves and vanishes down the stairs. Outside, there are shouts and clattering of feet; the squad of men have sighted the creature, and are giving chase.

Morse keeps the records up, his chest heaving with every breath. Sweat drips down his face. His whole body trembles. Thursday dearly wishes he could tell him that it’s over, that he’s safe now, but this could be one last manoeuvre by the vampire. Best not to drop their defenses until they’re completely sure, especially since the creature has already obliterated the flat’s meager threshold.

In a moment a policeman, practically jingling with the amount of iron on his person, appears in the doorway. For the first time in nearly half an hour, Morse wavers. Then he staggers, the records dropping to the floor. The policeman—Thursday recognizes Jim Strange—manages to catch Morse and guide him to the couch, where he collapses with alarming suddenness.

Strange turns to the scene on the floor, brows furrowing good-naturedly as he struggles to make sense of it. “Salt?” he asks.

“Magical insulator,” Monica supplies. “Disrupts energy flow from a practitioner to their target. Almost impossible to cast a spell across a line of salt.”

 _Or hold a man in thrall_ , Thursday thinks. _Especially since that was no ordinary salt._

“You a witch, then?” Strange asks. “You got a license?”

“Sort of and no. I don’t practice.”

“What do you call this?”

“It doesn’t take a witch to pour out salt on the floor.”

Strange looks as though he might object, but Thursday hits him with a high-calibre glare.

“Well, I suppose we’ll overlook it given the circumstances, Miss. Please do get a license.”

Monica sniffs. “The license is not a legal requirement if I don’t actually do any magic. I’ve got a job in healthcare. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got a patient to see to.” She rises to examine Morse, leaving Thursday to gather up the scattered cushions and elevate Jakes’ legs. He glances up at his new bagman as he fetches the blanket from the floor.

For a moment Thursday thinks Morse is unconscious, but he’s just exhausted. Strange fetches whiskey from the top of the cupboard and presents a glass to Morse, who coughs out a weak, “Cheers,” and knocks it back.

After a lot of poking, prodding on Monica’s part, and wincing on Morse’s, Monica determines that Morse has several cracked ribs and a broken collarbone. Given the severity of the impact with the car, Thursday considers, it could have been much worse. His bagman is miserable, but not in significant danger.

Meanwhile, Jakes’ breathing has grown less shallow, and his pulse has settled down: still fast, but not so alarmingly skippy. At one point his eyes open, but they flicker in confusion, and quickly close again.

Thursday asks Strange discreetly if the unit has brought any antivenin with them. It’s a desperate hope; the stuff needs constant refrigeration. One look at Strange’s face tells him all he needs to know. A moment later the man is starting with alarm.

“One of you’s been bit? Jakes? We’ve got to get him to an isolation room! It’s not safe!”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Monica says pleasantly, not even looking up from Morse. She’s got him on his back on the couch with his shirt unbuttoned, feeling his stomach for internal injuries. Morse is calm under her touch. Thursday is impressed; if Morse, an empath, is relaxed, then Monica must genuinely be so as well. “The vampire attempted to make Jakes into its thrall. Once it does that, he can’t be turned. We’re giving first aid now for hypovolemic shock, although I’d much prefer to give supplemental oxygen and a blood transfusion. I understand the hospital is inaccessible until dawn, is that correct?”

Strange, looking shocked at this gout of information, nods. Thursday sags with relief. Not turned!

“Hear that, Jakes?” he mutters to the unconscious man. “We won’t have to shoot you after all!”

Morse gives him a cracked, sideways grin from the couch. Thursday lowers his head in his hands. _What a night_ , is all he can think, _what a night_.

***

It transpires that modern British medical science does not agree with Monica that thralls cannot later turn vampire themselves. Or, as the doctor sneers to her, when they finally arrive at hospital only minutes after sunrise, “I’ve never even heard of such a thing.” He leaves Monica standing there with clenched fists.

“Everyone knows that,” she hisses to herself.

“Well, not to take his side, Miss, but I’ve never heard of it either. Britain hasn’t had to deal with a vampire in decades, and they never were very common here. Maybe we’re a little behind the times. May I ask where you heard the idea?”

Monica is somewhat mollified by Thursday’s diplomatic approach. “My parents were both born in Jamaica. Blood-touched have been a problem there for as long as anyone can remember. Although,” she adds, “they weren’t precisely vampires, but they did create… well, you call them _thralls_ , but my parents always used the word _duppies_. My mother taught me when I was very young how to break the hold on one.”

“Circle of salt?”

“Yes. Although if you chant words of protection over it, it’s more powerful. Honestly I wasn’t sure it was going to work—the creature was standing right there!” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Thank you, by the way. For not mentioning that it wasn’t just ordinary table salt.”

“Least I could do. You’d saved my man’s life about six times over at that point.”

“Yes, well. You can’t tell from the way these doctors are carrying on.”

It’s true. Jakes’ arrival at the hospital, as the first possibly-turned vampire in most doctors’ memory, is being treated as a Class One emergency. People are jingling their iron talismans and walking around with crucifixes in hand. It’s a hell of a lot of hullabaloo over a man who is still unconscious and probably couldn’t stand unassisted even if he were awake. Eventually they load him up on a stretcher and cart him off to Old Ironsides, the iron-lined, silver-riveted box in the ground where supernatural isolation cases go.

Morse flinches at the words, and Thursday feels a bolt of sympathy. Morse himself spent the night in Old Ironsides, once, and though he hasn’t spoken of it Thursday knows it can’t have been a pleasant experience.

“He’ll be alright, Morse,” Thursday says, patting the lad’s uninjured arm gently. “It’s only until sundown. They’ve just got to be sure for themselves. And they’ll take good care of him in the meantime.”

Morse is still holding himself like a man in severe pain, dark bags under his eyes and deep lines around his mouth. Thursday guides him over to the check-in desk, and they make it to an examination room in a trice. No one questions Thursday’s and Monica’s presence at Morse’s side.

Morse is summarily hauled off to the x-ray room, where the news is good: his collarbone does not need surgery, although he will have to keep the arm in a sling until it recovers. On the other hand, a whopping six of his ribs are cracked, all along his back where he collided with the car. The bruising is spectacular, black and purple and blue. His neck is stiff with whiplash.

The doctor insists Morse keep his arm in a sling and orders him to take aspirin for the pain. He refuses to risk opiates on someone who is already not breathing optimally.

“You got very lucky,” he says. “It seems like you were almost perpendicular to the car when you hit it. The force was distributed over a good portion of your ribcage. A slightly different angle and you easily could have punctured your lung, ruptured your spleen, broken your back, or all three.”

Morse gulps, going pale, and Thursday recognizes his about-to-faint face. (Is it a bad thing, that Thursday has known Morse for barely over a week and already knows his about-to-faint face?)

“Goodness, Morse,” Thursday scolds, moving closer just in case he has to catch the man. “Next time you charge a vampire, you should really be more careful about it.”

The joke does the trick; Morse bursts out laughing. The laughter turns into a coughing fit, which turns into cursing Thursday and laughing some more, albeit in a more subdued fashion. But at least they don’t have to pick him up off the floor.

When they all migrate over to the isolation ward a few minutes later, the hospital staff refuse to let them enter. Instead, they have to look at Jakes through a plexiglass window about the size of a mail slot.

The room is dark and barren, with metal walls and a metal floor and ceiling. Jakes is lying on a thin mattress; there is no bedframe to speak of. An oxygen mask covers most of his face, the tubing stretching out of the room though narrow holes in the door. The tank itself rests in the hall outside; a precaution against its being employed as a weapon, Thursday supposes. In spite of the mask, Thursday can see that the man’s brow is furrowed in pain. An IV bag of fluids is being fed into the vein in his forearm. His broken arm, swollen and discolored, has been straightened but not cast. Various other bruises are visible on his chest, with a dark arc across his neck where Thursday choked him. Thursday doesn’t feel guilty, precisely—he knows it had to be done—but he finds the mark hard to look at. He remembers the vampire’s glittering eyes.

Jakes would look more or less like an ordinary trauma patient, thinks Thursday, were it not for the iron chain that leads from his good arm straight into the floor.

“How many units of blood did you need?” he asks the doctor. “And why isn’t his arm set?”

“We’re trying to minimize the exposure our staff has to him. We’ve taken some life-saving measures, but further treatment would simply be too risky. If he’s in thrall, he could attack someone. If he’s turned, there’s no use wasting our medical resources on a creature we’re going to put down anyway.”

“Put down?” Thursday allows his incredulity to show, hopes he’s succeeding in filtering out his mounting temper. “Does he look like a _vampire_ to you? Or does he look like a man who damn near sacrificed his life so that you lot wouldn’t get your jugulars torn open watching the bloody fireworks?!”

The doctor takes a step back, stunned. Damn. So much for filtering out his temper.

Monica takes advantage of the silence. “Sir, I broke the connection between the creature and this man myself. It was a simple salt circle.”

“The efficacy of salt circles has not been rigorously tested in this country. Please, miss, keep your tropical superstitions to yourself. We are here to practice _medicine_.”

“Is that why he still hasn’t got a blood transfusion even though only an hour ago he was near hypovolemic shock? Is that why you haven’t given him an analgesic?” Monica’s not shouting, but she’s angry like a cat, eyes narrow, voice on the verge of hissing. “We are medical professionals! Risk of infection comes with the job—but that doesn’t even matter here, because this patient isn’t a risk!”

The doctor crosses his arms, staring down his nose at Monica. “Are you volunteering to treat this patient yourself?”

“If that’s what it bloody takes to get him properly seen to, then yes!” Monica stalks off, presumably to fetch gloves and uniform. Thursday notices the startled admiration in Morse’s eyes as he watches her go.

Monica enters Old Ironsides a few minutes later with a unit of blood and another bag of liquids that Thursday surmises are painkillers. She hooks the blood up to Jakes’ IV, noting the time the chart at the foot of the mattress. He rouses a little at the noise, and, though Thursday cannot hear them, it seems that they have a brief conversation. About halfway through, Jakes’ entire body sags with relief; she must have told him that he can’t be turned now. Monica prods each finger of his broken arm with her pen, and looks relieved in turn when he gives a weak nod afterwards. In another moment, she adds the painkillers to the drip, and the deep furrow between his eyebrows disappears. His blinks come slower and slower until his eyes don’t open again.

“There,” Monica says, peeling her gloves off as she exits the room. “Perfectly safe.”

“How did he seem?”

“Scattered, exhausted. Nothing you wouldn’t expect.”

Another nurse shamefacedly volunteers to check on him during her rounds. Satisfied, Monica agrees to let Thursday drive her home.

Thursday drives Morse and Monica—he likes the sound of their names together—back to their rooms, but as they approach the old building, he realizes that it is still crawling with police. They’re not here for any new developments, but one of the higher-ups seems to have insisted that they go over the scene very thoroughly.

There’s nothing for it. Monica’s eyes are looking bloodshot and Morse has already fallen asleep in the backseat. “Right,” Thursday says, “Monica, my daughter is at work this morning and you can kip in her bed if you like today. Morse, you’re asleep—“

“… am not,” he mutters.

“—you can have the couch at my house. Agreed?”

Monica assents, and Morse lets out a snore that Thursday interprets as a yes.

At home, Thursday gives Win a kiss good morning and explains the situation. She gladly agrees to let the two temporary refugees stay, and cooks a spectacular English breakfast for those of them as are still awake (Thursday and Monica). Win frets over the goose egg on the back of Thursday’s head where it hit the street, and he pops a couple aspirin in his mouth for it.

Then, fighting with himself not to yawn every few seconds, Thursday drives himself back to the station. There will be piles of paperwork from last night, reports to make, reassurances to dole out, reporters to inform. He relishes the prospect of signing Riscar’s arrest warrant more than he probably should.

Within about half an hour he has fallen asleep, head resting on a pile of papers on his desk.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was no end of trouble to write :/ Hopefully my difficulty writing it won't affect your enjoyment reading it.

_And I think it’s gonna be all right/_   
_Yeah, the worst is over now…_

Red Rubber Ball, written by Paul Simon (1966)

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The press goes mad.

Morse knew, of course, that a vampire attack in England was going to be big news. But there’s a big gap between knowing in the abstract that something important has happened and being mobbed by reporters as he walks into the station. His memories of that night feel so personal—the fact that the whole rest of the country wants to know every detail seems like an invasion.

Thursday handles most of the press, thank God. But that doesn’t stop the reporters from hurling questions, assaulting him with flashbulbs everywhere he goes. He’s young, has the height and what some consider good looks, and the sling round his arm is a very visible symbol of what he’s been through. Worse, everything the public knows about happened at his flat. They seize upon him as a figure of interest.

“Constable! Is it true that the vampire has fled for Europe?”

“Constable! Where did the vampire come from?”

“Do you think England is safe, Morse?”

“Is it true that another officer was turned? Could there be an outbreak?”

Morse whirls around, nearly upsetting the tripod of a _Daily Mirror_ cameraman. “No. No, nobody was turned. That’s absolutely, completely incorrect and irresponsible of you to even say. There is no vampire outbreak in Oxford.”

More flashbulbs go off in his face. He raises a hand to shield his eyes.

“There was an officer, a Sergeant Jakes, held in the isolation ward at—“

“I’m not at liberty to discuss other policemen’s personal health.” Morse half-shouts to be heard over the clamour.

“But surely, a week later, when the man still hasn’t emerged from hospital—“

“Such matters are generally kept between a patient and his doctor, aren’t they? He was quite severely injured in the service of his country, and if the doctors have chosen not to release him, that’s their professional decision!” As rude as Jakes was to Morse at first, this behaviour is really beyond the pale. He turns on his heel and slams the door in their faces.

“Bloody reporters,” he mutters, sagging against the wall.

Strange gives a sympathetic nod from his desk. “They’re worse than the vampire, you ask me.”

Morse remembers that night, the greasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, the deadness in the creature’s voice. “Well. Almost.” He forces a shaky smile.

A few other men, walking past, give some gentle mockery of the press as well. One of them offers his hand, hauls Morse up from the wall. Morse detects nothing but goodwill in his touch. It’s a relief to him that the newfound camaraderie is sincere, at least in this instance; ever since his role in the vampire attack came out to the other men, they’ve treated him with increased respect and trust. It’s an alien feeling, for someone as awkward and standoffish as Morse, but certainly not a bad one.

Instead of going to his desk, he reports to Thursday’s office. There are people here to interview him, just as there have been for the last three days. All the offices and agencies rather run together, after a point. There’s so many handshakes and how-do-you-dos, he often finds himself worn out before the interview even starts. Luckily, most interested parties have been content with speaking to him and Thursday at the same time, and think it natural that Thursday, as the higher-ranking officer, should take the lead. The only thing Morse enjoys about these meetings is getting to hear the story of how Thursday sucker-punched the vampire in the face, which Morse was unconscious for the first time around. That, at least, never gets old.

After the interview is over, some of the other men cause a diversion for the reporters out front so that he and Thursday can escape out the back and head to the pub for lunch. Morse is grateful for the scrap of normalcy; the last few days he has been eating at his desk.

“They don’t know we’re here,” Thursday says, leaning close over his sandwich. “I was thinking we could try to sneak over and see Jakes. He’s being discharged and he’ll need walking home.”

Morse frowns. “But sir, if the press recognizes us, they’ll be all over him. That’s the last thing he needs.”

“They’ll be all over him anyway, Morse. This way he’ll be in the presence of two men they’ve decided are the heroes. We’ve got to control the images here or he’ll be ruined for doing the right thing.”

Morse nods, remembering how the hospital personnel had reacted to the news of Jakes’ possible infection. “You think… the mob…”

“I think people are on the verge of panic about this vampire business. If we let them continue to believe Jakes is a threat, things could very easily escalate beyond our control. We need this to look good. Are you with me?”

“I’m with you, sir.”

***

By pulling his hat down over his eyes and turning his collar up Morse manages to sneak into the hospital undetected. He rendezvouses with Thursday in the lobby, where he has been waiting for some minutes; they had split up to lessen the likelihood of being caught by the knot of photographers who have camped the hospital almost as thoroughly as the police station.

They’d given Jakes a private room in an out-of-the-way wing on the fourth floor, once his lack of transformation on the first night had made it clear that keeping him locked Old Ironsides was an unnecessary cruelty. He’s there now, sitting up in bed, combing his hair back restlessly. Monica has brought him a sharp ensemble from his flat, and he’s already changed into it. The press has been curiously mum on her part in events, quoting her as “a bystander” only once or twice, and very few government agencies have bothered to track her down. Morse wonders if it’s racism, sexism, or just a simple unwillingness to believe that a civilian could do as well or better than three trained coppers against a vampire. Whatever it is, Monica seems to be enjoying her relative anonymity.

“How do I look?” Jakes asks, lighting a cigarette and taking it to his lips.

“Did you really have to do your hair like that?” is Thursday’s pitiless assessment.

Jakes turns to Monica in mute appeal, but she gives no quarter. “It _is_ a little Bela Lugosi. I mean, you’ve got the widow’s peak and everything.”

Jakes frowns. “I always do my hair like this.” But he musses it up a little. There’s no mirror in the room, so he can’t even assess himself. “I bet I look like a complete prat,” he mourns.

“No more than usual,” Morse says with a sly grin.

“Hey!” But Jakes is smiling as well, for once. Morse supposes that some experiences are awful enough to make steadfast friends out of former enemies, and it seems that battling a vampire numbers among them. Actually, the messy hair makes the other man look a little like a member of a rock and roll band. Hopefully the press will seize on that and stop harassing Morse about whether he’s got a girlfriend.

As though he can read Morse’s thoughts, Thursday clears his throat and says, “The press is out there.”

Jakes’ mouth turns down at the corners. “I’ve read what they’re saying about me. Do you think they’ll try to ask me questions?”

Thursday snorts. “I think if they get any closer to you than they did me you’ll be pulling the microphone out of your—I mean, er, yes.” Monica, whose eyebrows had been creeping steadily up her forehead, laughs.

“They’ll shout at you from across the street,” Morse puts in.

“Trample your wife’s herb garden trying to take pictures through the window.”

“Bar the door to your flat until you speak to them.”

“Follow you into the pub.”

“Offer judgmental commentary on your choice of drink.”

“You ordered scotch at nine in the morning, Morse.”

Jakes looks half-amused, half-alarmed. “So do they really believe that I’ve turned? Because I’ve thought about it, and I had Monica bring this.” He pulls a simple cross on a chain out from under his shirt. “Symbol of faith, right? A vampire couldn’t touch it.”

“It has to be sincere faith,” Thursday says at once. “There’s a huge difference between a crucifix someone has spent hours praying over and a cheap piece someone’s just bought. There’s more to a cross than two sticks at right angles. A vampire could easily wear one of those.”

Jakes’ face falls. “So it’s not definitive.”

Thursday clears his throat. “You’re on the right track. I’ve taken the liberty of contacting the bishop. He’ll be out front in”—he checks his watch—“fifteen minutes. I’ve told him to bring whatever articles of faith he sees fit. There will be a public test.”

“Understood.”

They lapse into a tense silence, uncertain how to bring the conversation over to more pleasant topics. Eventually they drift over to the waiting area, where a woman is reading the paper aloud to an elderly gentlewoman with great milky cataracts over her eyes.

“—received word Bishop James Treacleburr is due for a short notice visit. Radcliffe is one and the same ward where Detective Sergeant Peter Jakes, twenty-nine years of age, is rumoured to have been quarantined for the past three days.

“In that time, speculation has been rampant that Jakes was turned in the Bonfire Night vampire attack. Local community groups have turned out in force to protest the alleged presence of such a creature here. Given that members of the Church are trained especially in the extermination of dangerous beasts, it would seem that protesters’ demands—“

Thursday stalks out of the room with a thunderous expression, Morse, Jakes, and Monica bobbing along behind. “Load of rubbish,” he says. “Don’t let it trouble you, Jakes. We’ll clear it up soon enough.”

“They had my name. Someone’s on the take,” Jakes says, anger in every line of his posture. “Bloody idiot, this is my _life_ here, not just some stupid case!”

Thursday bites his lip, turns back to Jakes with a carefully neutral expression and says, “Best shift ourselves. Morse and I will be right beside you the whole time.”

***

Morse is blinded by flashbulbs the instant the doors open. He grimaces, squinting in spite of himself. Jakes, beside him, quails for a moment, but then Thursday’s hand slips behind his back, nudging him forward. Someone’s put up a podium with a microphone at the top of the wide stairway up to the hospital’s rather imposing front doors. Thursday taps on the microphone, makes sure it’s on. The throng of cameras retreat a little, trying to get a shot that contains all three men. The protesters, behind the cameras, go silent, uncertain.

“Right,” Thursday says, “I’m D.I. Thursday. You’re all already familiar with D.C. Morse. _This_ young lad is D.S. Peter Jakes.”

Morse has never heard so many people gasp in such perfect synchrony. In the back, someone lets out a wail, and Jakes flinches. Turmoil breaks out, but Thursday heads it off. “Now, I’ve heard some frankly ridiculous rumours as to Jakes’, er, status. We want to affirm, very publicly, that Sergeant Jakes is human, in a manner you can all see for yourselves and know to be trustworthy.”

A patter of flashbulbs starts up again as the reporters recover themselves.

“To that end,” Thursday continues, “I have invited the Bishop of Oxford, James Laurence Treacleburr, to give Sergeant Jakes the traditional Test of the Cross in front of you all today. Your Grace?”

The bishop steps forward, complete with long pale robes and funny hat.

From there, it’s remarkably fast. A few men bring forward a very ancient-looking, wood-carved cross, an artefact of reverence for generations and generations of Oxford faithful . Jakes, beckoned forward by the bishop, places his hand upon the cross. The bishop says a prayer; Jakes, at his instruction, repeats the lines in turn.

Just like that, it’s over. The bishop says a blessing over Jakes, even kissing his forehead at the end, which leaves the man looking startled and embarrassed. Morse hopes he is the only one who has gleaned Jakes’ near-unfamiliarity with Church practice. The fewer hints of anything less than perfect citizenship, the better. It is a relief when Thursday takes the microphone and says, “All right, everyone, nothing more to see here. You can go home now. I know I’m about to.”

***

They do go home, which is to say, they all head back to Thursday’s for dinner, Morse and Thursday quizzing Jakes about his encounters with their various curious government agencies as they go. Jakes wants to stop by his flat, but someone apparently working without knowledge of today’s press conference has painted BLOOD-SUCKER in red letters on the front door. Jakes lip curls up contemptuously when he sees it, but he looks reluctant to go inside.

“We’ll have it painted over,” says Thursday, tight-lipped, steering him back to the Jag. “You can spend the night at our place if you like.” Morse has finally returned to his own flat (which has been thoroughly picked over by aforementioned government agencies), so the Thhursdays’ couch is open. They drive the rest of the way home in silence.

“Wait,” Jakes says, as Thursday and Morse are reaching for their door handles. “There’s something I need to ask about, before we go in.”

“Of course.”

Jakes turns to face Morse full-on. “You’re not some kind of… some kind of witch, are you?”

“Jakes—“ Thursday tries to cut in, but Morse gives him a glance.

Jakes continues. “You—on the case, you knew things—things that there was no way to know.”

“Yes,” Morse says slowly, monitoring Jakes’ reaction closely. The other man’s hands clench, but his face remains unreadable. “I’m not a witch, exactly, but I am sun-touched. An empath.”

Jakes doesn’t say anything. Morse’s pulse mounts in the silence. In the front seat, Thursday is gripping the steering wheel too tightly, though he’s no longer driving.

After a moment a recognizable emotion appears on Jakes’ face: doubt. “You saved my life with that trick with the records. I read about it in the papers.”

“Saved my own life too, didn’t I?” Morse says. “And you know how papers exaggerate.”

“Oh, don’t pretend, Morse,” Jakes protests. “We’d have never known about the vampire if it wasn’t for you. All those people watching the fireworks…”

“Look, are you angry with me, or are you trying to thank me?”

“I don’t know! Both!” Jakes slams his hand down on the seat and then hisses as it jars one of his injuries.

After a moment’s pause, he says, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“For what I almost said just then. It was cruel.”

Morse narrows his eyes. “Never stopped anyone before, least of all you.”

Jakes gives a bitter laugh, shakes his head. “Strange how your perspective changes, isn’t it?” He looks up from his folded hands, eyes serious. “Morse, you did what nobody else could do. You solved that case and you saved those people, and you helped save my life.”

Morse braces for the sting at the end, but it doesn’t come.

Jakes continues, “All my life… all everyone’s lives really, we’ve been taught that the world has two categories in it. Regular, ordinary, wholesome folk, and monsters that’ll kill you dead, and that only if you’re lucky.”

Morse nods, frowning. It’s clear from the way Jakes is speaking that he has thought this bit through in advance. Thursday, in the front seat, has relaxed his hold on the steering wheel slightly, and is now trying not to look too interested in the conversation taking place behind him.

“And…and this week…” Jakes exhales, his jaw tight. “Well, you were there. You understand.”

“I understand,” Morse sighs. He thinks he does. Jakes, having been dealt nearly deadly injury by a creature from the same uncanny world that Morse inhabits, can no longer bear to live so close beside that world. It’s a blow, to be sure—Morse had hoped, maybe, that their nascent friendship might be allowed to grow. But it’s not unexpected. And really, Morse has a thick skin when it comes to what other people think about him. If Jakes doesn’t care for his company now that he knows what he is, well, he’ll be one among many.

“You’re not one of them,” Jakes says flatly. “You fought that thing with the rest of us. But I… I got a taste, just a taste, of how people look at you when they think you’re not one of them. Not ordinary. And it was bloody awful.”

Morse looks up.

“I don’t want to treat you like that,” Jakes says. “You’re far from ordinary. You’ll never be one of them. One of us, I suppose. But… even if you aren’t… you aren’t bad, either.”

Morse feels a perplexed smile come to his face. _He_ knows he’s not one of the monsters, of course. But, if he’s honest with himself, he spends a lot of time living like one. Concealing his abilities, skulking about. It begins to grate, wear him thin, always playing the double game, always watching himself.

Jakes might not understand that completely, but he has, as he says, gotten a sense of what it’s like to live on the other side of the picket fence. It might be nice, to have someone who can almost understand.

“I’ve offended you, haven’t I?” Jakes, misinterpreting Morse’s pause, rushes more words. “You don’t need me to tell you what’s what, whether you’re on the side of the angels or… or whatever. You chose to become a bloody police officer. God knows it must be hard for you, but—“

“Jakes,” Morse says, cutting him off. “I’m not offended.”

“No?”

“No. I don’t need you to validate my not needing your validation. That would be paradoxical.”

Jakes takes a minute to work that through. “So…where do we stand, then?”

Morse sighs. “Let’s just shake and be done with it.”

Jakes looks startled. Morse knows exactly what he’s done. It’s a little cruel, more than a little demanding, but if Jakes is sincere…

Jakes thrusts out a hand, glaring defiantly into Morse’s eyes. Morse gives his hand one quick pump and drops it. It’s not at all the darkness of their first contact. Faint overtones of irkedness and alarm, but altogether… Jakes genuinely respects him. Pities him, as well, for his isolation. Wants to help him, wants to be friends.

“All right,” Morse says, with a faint nod. The pity they’ll have to work on, but overall…

Jakes’ face breaks into a grin. “Passed the test then, did I?”

Morse makes a face before realizing the man is joking. As Jakes clambers out of the car, Thursday catches Morse’s eye in the mirror and nods in approval.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A not-so-fun fact: when I first planned out this story in August, I worried that the hysteria over England's first maybe-vampire would seem ludicrously overblown. And then this Ebola-in-Dallas story blew up. Now I think that, if anything, I UNDERWROTE it. Real life: it strains credibility sometimes :P


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it, and just in time for Halloween! Thanks so much to everyone who has commented, kudo'd, and bookmarked. This was a blast to write, and your support and kind words have meant so much to me :D

EPILOGUE

It takes over a fortnight for them to find Riscar, in a burnt-out old husk of a bar in Naples. The extradition hearings begin almost immediately. It looks like real bureaucratic progress is being made until his body is found in his cell one morning with nary a drop of blood in it. The guards all claim to have neither seen nor heard any indication of anything amiss.

Morse believes them. In a dark corridor, late at night, it would be very easy for a black miasma to pass unnoticed but for a chill in the blood. The Italians cover Riscar’s body with anti-necromantic writings and dispose of it in an unmarked grave.

News like that, Morse thinks, is occasion for a drink.

Jakes and Thursday come without need to be invited, and he telephones Monica that he’s got important news for her, since he can’t be seen to gossip with a civilian on the station’s own phone.

Morse has already gone to see a film with her once, on the sick day he took for breaking or fracturing a fair percentage of the bones in his torso. His arm’s still in a sling, but the doctor’s shown him some rehabilitation exercises to work on now that the swelling’s gone down. They hurt quite a lot, but not so much that he’d prefer a non-functioning arm. In truth, Jakes, who can hide his cast mostly under his jacket and most of his bruises behind a high collar, looks less worked-over than Morse does at this point.

Monica enters the Fox and Hounds only a few moments after they all take their seats. Morse fills her in on the latest developments over a round of ale.

“So this… this means that our vampire has left England? Like the papers were saying?” Practically the whole of Oxfordshire and the surrounding counties had been turned completely upside-down in search of the monster in the days after Bonfire Night. All stations had been on high alert; people had carried iron with them wherever they walked. Even now, in early December, more people are wearing crosses around their necks than you might expect.

“Guess he found it too hot for his liking,” Jakes says, smirking.

“He got revenge on Riscar, too,” Morse adds. “I imagine that when the wards went up perfectly he imagined that he’d not received his promised payment. Decided to show Riscar what the price would be for crossing a vampire.”

After a moment’s pause, Monica snorts. “You,” she says, “did _not_ just make that pun.”

Morse buries his grin in his drink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss.”

Thursday chuckles and orders another round while Jakes looks vaguely puzzled, trying to find the pun in what Morse just said. Morse will never explain it to him; best to let a man have his pride or, failing that, at least the dignity of not being spoken down to. At last, Jakes understands, a rueful smile coming to his face as he shakes his head.

“Bloody awful,” he says, and Monica and Thursday begin laughing anew.

Morse notices the warmth in his chest and remembers the moment he picked up the record at the crime scene, remembers the precise timbre of the emotion that Mary left on it. He’d thought it had been the music she loved. Of course, that was a part of it. But when he’d held his records aloft against the vampire, felt faith and commitment and love for the sounds they contained scalding his heart—that had been different.

Now, experiencing Mary’s feeling for himself, he can finally give it a name. He gasps, and the last piece of the puzzle falls into place. Thursday was right, after all. Aesthetic appreciation wasn’t what had almost saved Mary. She may have loved that piece, but she loved it because she’d played it with her quartet, her dearest friends. How many hours must they have practiced together?

That moment in the piece when she’d almost broken free: it was beautiful, yes—but it was also when all the parts came intricately together: when each performer would be seeking out eye contact with another, reaching out for the connection that would put them perfectly in sync. The feeling on Carmichael’s record isn’t aesthetic ecstasy—it’s trust. Unity.

He closes his eyes and basks in it.


End file.
